An NYPD lieutenant sent an email to colleagues apologizing for taking a knee with protesters at a May 31 Black Lives Matter protest. The officer, Robert Cattani, called his decision to kneel with protesters “horrible” and said that he regrets it. Video of Cattani and other officers kneeling during the protest in lower Manhattan circulated on social media. They did it after thousands of protesters chanted “NYPD, take a knee.”

Cattani claimed that he thought at the time that protesters may have turned violent if he and the other officers did not kneel. “I thought maybe that one protester/rioters who saw it would later think twice about fighting or hurting a cop,” Cattani wrote in the email, obtained by the New York Post. “I was wrong. At least that [sic] what I told myself when we made that bad decision. I know that it was wrong and something I will be shamed and humiliated about for the rest of my life.” Cattani said he has considered quitting the NYPD.