Chicago police said Tuesday an individual is in custody in connection to a cross found burning in Grant Park last week.
Police officers responded to the downtown park around 2:30 p.m. on June 9, where the wooden cross was burning, according to the Chicago Police Department. Officers extinguished the fire and an investigation has been underway, police say.
A frame grab from a video taken by Keinika Carlton showed a wooden cross engulfed in flames near Columbus and Balbo drives in Chicago’s Grant Park on June 9. Police released an image the following afternoon of a man wearing black pants who was observed fleeing the scene. No charges have been filed against the individual as of Tuesday afternoon.
On Monday night, WMAQ-Ch.5 reported it had interviewed a man who claimed to be the person captured in the police images and who burned the cross.
Asked Tuesday about the arrest, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to speculate on the motives of the person who burnt the cross.
“We can only speak to the impact. And the impact was devastating,” he said.
Johnson called the cross “a painful reminder of how hatred toward Black Americans still permeate” and an “evil symbol of hatred.” He paraphrased author James Baldwin: “Power and ignorance is the most ferocious enemy of justice.”
“Whatever consequences that come out of this investigation, I hope it matches the level of not just discomfort, but pain that it caused,” he said
The sight of the cross burning sparked criticism and rage from the Chicagoland community and beyond on social media. Both Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker remarked on the act on social media, and the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham offered a $10,000 reward to help find the perpetrator.
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The symbol of a burning cross is widely associated with racism and white supremacy, as it was one of the most prominent hate symbols used by the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1900s, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
baiduhai’s Jake Sheridan contributed.