COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. —  Erasing a regrettable past. It’s not always easy, especially when it’s a tattoo.

One local shop is offering to cover up tattoos depicting racism or hateful images for free, and they’re doing it all in an effort to rid the world of hate.

Jacob Peterson knows all too well about this. As a former white supremacist, he admits he has made mistakes.

“I thought there was power in belonging to this group,”  Peterson said.

That checkered past is present all over his body. Among the dozens of tattoos on his canvas, four proclaim white power, pride, and supremacy.

“I started to realize all the flaws in the movement and just how ridiculous the whole thing was,” Peterson admitted.

The 31-year-old, who started getting tattoos 11 years ago, heard about the Redemption Ink program on the Fallen Heroes Facebook page.

The Fallen Heroes Tattoo shop is one of four in the country that covers up the hateful images for free. David Brown opened the business 14 months ago in Colorado Springs.

“I think if we rather than look for that division, look for that segregation,” Brown said.  “Rather, look for ways to help each other. I think we’re better off.”

One of the Fallen Heroes tattoo artists is Reece Allen. He says as an African-American man, he has been on the receiving end of racism. He has also helped friends and others cover up images like Ku Klux Klan, gang signs, and more. He prefers to be part of the solution.

“To cover tattoos and get something off, and someone says to me that it looks like its own tattoo that means so much to me,” Allen said.

Peterson said, “It’s absolutely incredible how amazing these people are, you know they have big hearts, compassion, especially, Reece, it’s really cool to me.”

Fallen Heroes encourages anyone with racist or hateful tattoos to head to redemptionink.org to start the process to receive the cover up work for free.