New Patriots Kicker: That Tattoo Is Going Away

He's doing more than covering up a controversial tattoo. A remorseful Justin Rohrwasser, a kicker newly drafted by the New England Patriots, tells Boston's WBZ-TV that he will have a tattoo representing an anti-government group removed from his arm altogether. Rohrwasser reiterated that he got the tattoo representing the Three Percenters group when he was a teenager and didn't have a clear understanding of its meaning. "It was described to me as the percentage of colonists that rose up against the government of the British," he said, per ESPN. "I was like, 'Wow, that is such an American sentiment, a patriotic sentiment.' Coming from a military family, I thought that really spoke to me.'"

The problem is that the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes the Three Percenters as "anti-government," which Rohrwasser says he just learned last weekend. He initially told reporters he planned to cover up the tattoo—it depicts the Roman numeral III surrounded by stars—but he's now making clear it will be removed. "It's shameful that I had it on there ignorantly," he says. Rohrwasser choked up during the video while apologizing to his family for the controversy. The Three Percenters group, meanwhile, says it is not anti-government or a militia but exists "to rein in an overreaching government and push back against tyranny," per USA Today. (More New England Patriots stories.)