“My past has come back to bite me in the butt,” 19-year-old Decatur Councilman apologizes for controversial post from 2018

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Decatur City Councilman, 19-year-old Hunter Pepper, apologized today for a controversial Facebook post he made when he was 16-years-old.

The first-term Councilman held a news conference on March 6 apologizing, saying he was “extremely sorry” for making a post on social media in 2018 that implied he thought Black protesters at the Galleria Mall in Hoover should be run over.

That protest mentioned took place after EJ Bradford was shot on November 22, 2018 by a Hoover police officer. Police believed Bradford was the gunman who shot a teen and 12-year-old girl inside the mall on Thanksgiving night.

The Councilman’s post from 2018 recently resurfaced showing a post he wrote saying, “See I have to go shopping there next week and we gone play a game called red rover red rover you fools gone get ran over!”

The 19-year-old said he made the post when he was just 16, stating, “my past has come back to bite me in the butt.”

Someone then replied to the Councilman’s post stating, “Use the bumper, that’s what it’s there for!”

Councilman Pepper replied, “I got brushguard it does better.”

During Pepper’s speech to the public, he called his comment “extremely arrogant” and “very ignorant.”

“I don’t think I should have made that comment,” he added.

Pepper says his post did not involve race, but unfortunately it took a turn in that direction.

“There is nothing in that post that mentions race whatsoever,” Pepper said. “Unfortunately it took a turn in that direction to involve race. I am extremely disappointed in myself at that moment in time. I’m not a racist individual, and don’t like racism and am extremely sorry how that turned out.”

The Councilman said he should have made better decisions in his juvenile past. “My past is something that I tried to look back on and say I could have done a lot better. I could have made a lot better decisions.”

Pepper defeated incumbent Charles Kirby in the 2020 municipal election to win the District 4 seat at just 18-years-old.

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