A man has explained why he took 70 replicas of the Confederate flag from graves in southeast Georgia, according to a media report.

The head of the Oak Grove Cemetery Society in Brunswick, Ga., removed the flags because they had become faded and worn, the Florida Times-Union reported. Brunswick is about 300 miles southeast of Atlanta.

Also, Robert M. Gindhart III told the commander of the local group of the Sons of Confederate Veterans that he should have first contacted the society before contacting Brunswick police, the paper reported.