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player ready...A 21-year-old man allegedly told Chicago police detectives that he lit a wooden cross on fire in Grant Park this week because “he believed the greatest threat to the American people is (President Donald) Trump, (Jeffrey) Epstein, their billionaire pedophile friends and their MAGA Christian Nationalist base,” prosecutors alleged Thursday.
Cook County Judge D’Anthony Thedford granted Merlin Lu pretrial release one day after officials announced a slew of charges against the man, including hate crime and arson.
Burning cross found in Grant Park; South Side church offering $10K reward for information
Lu turned himself into police after he participated in an interview with WMAQ-TV, in which he took responsibility for the fire near Balbo and Columbus drives. Lu’s attorney, Alexander Michael, told the court Thursday that the fire “was, essentially, a misguided attempt at a political protest by a 21-year-old.”
“There was no racial or religious motivation,” Alexander continued, arguing that Lu was “exercising his free speech rights in a foolish manner.”
Alexander added that his client placed a red “MAGA” hat on top of the 5-foot cross before lighting the flame. Thedford challenged prosecutors on the claim that the fire targeted a specific religious group.
“Is your position that Christian nationalism is a religion?” Thedford asked
“Yes, judge. Based on his statement, yes,” Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Elizabeth Dibler replied.
In granting his release, Thedford also barred Lu from purchasing or using any combustible materials similar to those used in the fire.
Lu’s parents were present in court for the hearing, though they declined to make a statement to reporters.
Lu, of the city’s Near West Side neighborhood, faces four felonies, including one count of damage to stolen property, one count of arson and separate counts of a hate crime, authorities announced late Wednesday. Lu is also charged with several misdemeanors: disorderly conduct, reckless conduct, criminal damage to property and cross burning to intimidate, police said.
Dibler told the court that Lu was captured on surveillance footage walking east on Roosevelt Road while carrying two planks of wood. Chicago Police Department detectives later found the cap of a kerosene bottle at the scene of the fire, and they soon learned that Lu had purchased the accelerant at a nearby Home Depot in late May.
“The defendant chose to set this cross on fire in the middle of Grant Park, downtown Chicago, in the middle of summer,” Dibler added. “Setting that fire in the middle of Grant Park could cause catastrophic damages throughout the city.”
The charges came more than a week after police officers responded to the downtown park around 2:30 p.m. on June 9 and found a wooden cross burning. 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 initially announced they had taken a person into custody on Tuesday morning, after Lu identified himself as the person who burned the cross in an interview with WMAQ-TV. Lu said he was protesting the Trump administration and not making a racist statement.
“I did know about this historical relevance beforehand. But I didn’t know the severity, how racially motivated it may seem from what I did,” Lu told the TV station. “’Cause my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender.”
Asked earlier this week about the arrest, Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to speculate on the motives of the person who burned 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 permeates” 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.
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The sight of the cross burning sparked criticism and rage on social media from the Chicagoland community and beyond. 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.
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.