Man Says He Burned Cross In Grant Park To Protest Trump, NBC Reports

CHICAGO — Police have a person of interest in custody in connection with the burning of a cross last week in Grant Park.

Police confirmed a person was in custody Tuesday morning, after a man identified himself to a local news channel as the person who set a cross on fire last week near Columbus and Balbo drives.

NBC5 released an interview with the man Monday night where the man says he lit the cross on fire as a protest of President Donald Trump. He did not know a burning cross is widely seen as a racist symbol, he told the channel.

Block Club is not naming the man, who NBC5 said is a 21-year-old college senior, because his identity has not yet been verified and police have not confirmed his role in the arson.

On Tuesday, Mayor Brandon Johnson declined to say whether the person interviewed by NBC5 was the same person in custody. But he said a burning cross “is an evil symbol of hatred.”

“That symbol of hatred is one that we must continue to reject,” Johnson said. “I can’t speak to anyone’s motives, [… but] the impact was devastating.”

He said whatever consequences unfold should match “not just [the] discomfort but pain that it caused.”

The incident unfolded about 2:40 p.m. June 9, police said. Keinika Carlton was driving by with her daughter and mother-in-law when they saw the fire and recognized a cross was burning, she previously told Block Club. She posted a video of the cross-burning to social media.

The incident outraged local officials and neighbors, and St. Sabina on the South Side offered a $10,000 reward to the person who could identify the culprit. Police then released images of a man they said they wanted to identify in connection to the fire.

The University of Illinois Chicago said a person by the same name as the man in the NBC5 report attended the school as recently as the fall, but he was no longer enrolled.

NBC5 said the man first sent a video to the station where he admitted he was the person behind the fire.

“In no way possible was that a hate crime,” the man said in the interview. “I understand why it was interpreted that way, and I apologize for that, but no, the intent was not there.”

Instead, the incident was supposed to be a protest of Trump, with the man saying he had placed a red Make America Great Again hat on top of the cross.

The hat is not visible in video of the burning cross.

The burning of a cross is among the “most potent hate symbols in the United States,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Images of burning crosses are most associated with the Ku Klux Klan, whose members performed the act as a means of “racial intimidation,” according to the group.

In his remarks, Johnson said that ignorance is “not an escape trap door.”

“As a proud social studies teacher, someone who not only taught history but understands the value of history, we do that so we don’t forget the harm that was done to people and groups, and particularly Black Americans, while also creating a pathway to restore, and what I’m hoping in this moment is that people of Chicago use this as a rally to put forth a type of economic response that can make Black communities whole,” he said.