It was a startling and offensive scene.
A burning cross in Grant Park last Tuesday – the century-old flaming symbol of racism and hatred.
For nearly a week, Chicago police and the FBI have been trying to identify the man who was suspected of setting up the cross and torching it.
NBC 5 Investigates has identified a 21-year-old college senior who said he is the person in the photo and who described what he did and why.
The young shirtless man running from a burning cross in Grant Park had been a nameless person of interest in a Chicago police arson investigation and subject of a possible FBI hate crime case. NBC 5 Investigates has since interviewed the man who admits to the cross burning.
University of Illinois Chicago senior Merlin Lu said he knew the implications of a burning cross and had placed a MAGA hat atop the cross, explaining his motivation was to protest Trump administration injustice – not something racist.
“How did you land on a burning cross?” NBC Chicago’s Chuck Goudie asked.
“Just it came up to my head one day,” Wu said. “I wanted to find something that I could do by myself, like no organization, no friends…”
“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,” he said. “Cause my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to with gender.”
Goudie: “Should you have done it some other way?”
Lu: “Yeah, probably.”
Lu is a 21-year-old Naperville native.
Previous video showed him playing tennis at Neuqua Valley High School, where he graduated in 2022.
Last week, Lu sent a scripted video to NBC, claiming responsibility for the cross burning but saying he had no affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, apologizing to those who were offended. In the video he also criticized President Donald Trump.
“I don’t want to wait till his term ends,” he said. “I don’t wanna wait. Until he may or may not get impeached. I want him gone right now.”
Goudie: “On that video are you threatening him?”
Lu: “No.”
Goudie: “You say that you think he should be brought to an end.”
Lu: “I think no, I said, I said he deserves a stand trial to the American people, some paraphrase, I guess, but…”
Goudie: “You use the word end.”
Lu: “That’s what I mean by end, I don’t mean like a civil war, if that’s the imagery that you’re trying to imagine.”
Lu said he built the cross after carrying wooden slats from his Near West Side apartment to Grant Park last Tuesday afternoon. He showed the red ballcap that he put on the top beam and used lighter fluid and toilet paper to get it all going.
“I put a red hat to signify the MAGA hat, the Make America Great Again hat,” he said. “So that was, yeah, that’s what I tied on top. But that’s not visible in the one video that was taken by a motorist.”
Lu said he was protesting what he calls MAGA Christian nationalist supporters and the Trump administration “ruling class.”
“He’s just scamming people,” Lu said. “We’re just scam me out of money, right. And I think that’s a great reflection of how this country works right now, where money controls everything. Money has power over health care. Money has over transportation.”
Chicago police and the FBI have been trying to identify him ever since, putting out a flyer with pictures of him running away; CPD labeling it arson.
Goudie: “Are you surprised nobody’s identified you to this point and called them?”
Lu: “A little bit. But to me, that’s not that important. I don’t really, like, to me this issue is bigger than just myself.”
Goudie: “Did you make it all the way through almost four years at UIC without somebody teaching you that a burning cross is one of the most divisive symbols in America?”
Lu: “No, I don’t really have any, like… I never grew up with religion, never really surrounded myself with people with it. My childhood friend’s day, I remember them going to, like, confirmation and stuff, like, but um…”
Goudie: “But it’s a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, that really is where it started. Nobody ever taught you that? You never read it in a history book?”
Lu: “I just saw the Wikipedia page with the movie with the, like, I think it’s called like ‘Under One Nation’ or something like that.”
“The Birth of a Nation” is a famous 1915 silent film that romanticized the KKK and showed a cross burning.
Goudie: “Was it a hate crime?”
Lu: “No, for sure not. 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.”
The FBI and Chicago police will determine that and what charges may be filed against the man who admits the cross burning. Authorities have not reported anything new in the case.
Lu said his parents are encouraging him to surrender and offered to provide an attorney, but he said no. He told Goudie he’s thinking of turning himself in; it’s something he won’t have to worry about if police arrive first.
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