A 21-year-old man who admitted setting fire to a cross in a Chicago park last week was in custody Wednesday on hate crime charges, Chicago police said.
Merlin Lu was arrested Monday on four felony counts and four misdemeanor counts related to the incident on June 9, in which he is alleged to have “committed a hate crime by starting a fire that caused damage to city property,” police said in a statement Wednesday.
The large cross was found burning in Grant Park, prompting police to search for the perpetrator and release a photo of the man they said was responsible.
Lu told NBC Chicago on Monday that he was responsible for the cross burning, which has a long history in acts of racial terrorism against Black people, but said he intended it to be a protest of the federal government, not a hate crime, the station reported.
“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 station. “Because my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender.”
Lu, a senior at the University of Illinois Chicago, said he placed a red hat on top of the cross to protest President Donald Trump’s administration.
Asked how he landed on burning a cross, Lu told the station that it “came up to my head one day.”
“I wanted to find something that I could do by myself, like no organization, no friends,” he said.
Lu said he should have protested another way but did not regret his actions.
NBC Chicago said it received a video last week in which Lu claimed responsibility for the cross burning and added that he had no affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan. Lu also apologized to those who were offended in the video.
In the video, he also criticized Trump.
“I don’t want to wait till his term ends,” he said. “I don’t want to wait until he may or may not get impeached. I want him gone right now.”
Lu insisted that his message was not a threat to Trump, who he said he thinks should stand trial in front of the American people, according to NBC Chicago.
He said he built the cross using slats of wood and topped it off with the red hat, a symbol of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, which was not visible in many shots of the scene.
Despite the symbol’s historical context, Lu told NBC Chicago that he did not perform a hate crime and that he did not know a burning cross is a symbol of the KKK.
“In no way possible was that a hate crime. I understand why it was interpreted that way, and I apologize for that, but no, the intent was not there,” he said.
Two of the four felony counts are hate crime charges, police said. The two other felony counts deal with arson and damage to city property.
The four misdemeanor counts involve breach of peace, reckless conduct, damage to property and cross burning to intimidate, according to the police statement.
Lu was in custody Wednesday night. A detention hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, police said in the statement announcing his arrest.
It was not immediately clear late Wednesday whether Lu had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
