[FOX] A 21-year-old college student has come forward to claim responsibility for burning a cross in a popular Chicago park last week, but denied he was making a racist statement despite city leaders initially condemning it as an act of hate.
A University of Illinois Chicago senior told NBC 5 Chicago on Monday that he was the person seen leaving the scene at Grant Park last week, where onlookers filmed a cross in flames.
The man explained he was protesting President Donald Trump and had put a red hat on the cross to symbolize the MAGA hat. He said he did not realize that the protest would be viewed as racial.
"I did know about this historical relevance beforehand," the man told NBC 5. "But I didn’t know the severity, how racially motivated it may seem from what I did. 'Cause my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender."
| From Skidmark’s Daily Mail link: |
The culprit behind a Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-style cross burning in a Chicago park has unmasked himself as a Trump-hating Asian American.
Merlin Lu, 21, of Naperville, claimed he is the one responsible for setting the religious symbol ablaze in Grant Park on June 9.
The stunt took place in the same park where former President Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech when he was elected the nation's first black president in 2008. |