A person is in custody in a Chicago cross burning investigation, police
say
[June 17, 2026]
By ED WHITE
A person is in custody in an investigation of a large cross set on fire
in a well-known Chicago park, police said Tuesday.
The burning cross was discovered June 9 in Grant Park, where Barack
Obama delivered his acceptance speech when he was elected the nation’s
first Black president in 2008.
A man identifying himself as a 21-year-old college student told WMAQ-TV
that he was the shirtless person in an image distributed by police when
they were looking for a suspect. But police did not immediately say
Tuesday if he's the person in custody. The man said he was protesting
President Donald Trump 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,”
the man told the TV station. “Cause my protest has nothing to do with
race, nothing to do with gender.”
Cross burnings in the U.S. have historically been seen as symbols of
hate and intimidation against Black people and have often been connected
to the Ku Klux Klan.
The Chicago Police Department's communications office confirmed that a
person was in custody in connection with the case, but no other details
were released. An email seeking comment from the prosecutor's office was
sent Tuesday.
“I can’t speak to anyone’s motives. We can only speak to the impact. And
the impact was devastating," Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is Black, said
when asked about the cross and the man’s remarks to WMAQ.
The man interviewed by the TV station said he was protesting the “ruling
class” and Christian nationalists who support Trump. He said he put a
red hat on the cross to signify a MAGA hat worn by the president's
allies.
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This framegrab from a video taken by motorist Keinika Carlton shows
a wooden cross engulfed in bright orange flames as it leans against
a tree in Grant Park in Chicago on Tuesday, July 9, 2026. (Keinika
Carlton via AP)
The man said he doesn't consider what he did 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.
Gina Miranda Samuels, faculty director of the Center for the Study
of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, said the
man seemed sincere that he was not trying to send a hateful message
to Black people.
Nonetheless, she added, “it says a lot about how uninformed people
can be” about certain symbols, “and that it would be acceptable to
use a symbol of hatred and terror in this way.”
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, senior pastor with the local Catholic
church The Faith Community of Saint Sabina, said he doesn't buy that
the man went to the trouble of making the cross but didn't know it
was a symbol of hate.
“Your Lawyer Schooled you well,” he said in a post on Facebook.
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