21-year-old charged with hate crime after cross burning in Grant Park (FOX 32 Chicago)A 21-year-old anti-Trump activist charged with multiple felonies, including hate crimes, was released from jail Thursday after burning a cross in Chicago’s Grant Park and placing a Make America Great Again hat on top of it.As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, what was initially hyped by Chicago officials, Rev. Michael Pfleger, and media as a racist “white supremacist” or KKK-style attack in Grant Park turned out to be the work of a deranged anti-Trump, anti-MAGA leftist.On June 9, 2026, police and firefighters responded to a burning cross in Chicago’s Grant Park.The incident prompted immediate backlash, and one local church offered a $10,000 reward to help make an arrest, and local officials were quick to blame the incident on racism and ‘white supremacists.’Block Club Chicago reports that Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church, who offered the reward, noted, “Racism has always been a part of America’s DNA, and this week it has raised its head boldly and loudly,” Pfleger said in a statement.“This bold rise of racism must be condemned by every race, faith community, and Chicagoan as was done with the swastika and treated as a hate crime.”As it turns out, however, the cross-burner is an Asian man, Merlin Lu, 21, a University of Illinois Chicago senior, who burned the cross, adorned with a MAGA hat, to protest President Trump and MAGA.Lu allegedly told police that “The greatest threat to the American people is [President] Trump, [Jeffrey] Epstein, their billionaire pedophile friends, and their MAGA Christian nationalist base.”Now, the same Merlin Lu, has been released back onto the streets by a Cook County judge after facing serious felony charges for torching a cross with a MAGA hat tied on top.On Thursday, Lu appeared in Cook County court. Despite the gravity of the charges, multiple felonies targeting a protected class and using fire to intimidate, the judge refused to detain him. Lu was released pending trial (next court date June 22).The judge’s tough-talking condition? Lu is prohibited from possessing fire-starting materials like wood or kerosene. That’s it.Not held without bond. Not monitored aggressively. Just “don’t buy wood or kerosene,” as if this unhinged individual who openly frames Trump supporters and Christians as existential threats alongside pedophile billionaires will suddenly become harmless without kindling.CBS News reported:At his first court appearance on Thursday, Cook County prosecutors sought to have him detained while he awaits trial, but the judge said the state failed to show what he did was a hate crime.Lu walked out of Cook County Jail around 7:35 p.m. on Thursday, and apologized for the fear he invoked by burning a cross in Grant Park.“In terms of the fear that I’ve evoked, I’ve already apologized, and I’m going to apologize sincerely again right now, and I probably will continue to apologize for who knows how long, maybe forever, and I’ve accepted that,” he said. “I’m okay with that, I understand that, but after I’ve come out and explicitly stated that this is not intended to be a hate crime, I believe that any more narratives to paint me as a racist, as a KKK member, I believe that’s a distraction.”Asked how, as a college student, he could not know the historical context of cross burnings, Lu said, “I didn’t go to college for history.”“I understand now, I have learned now the severity and the historical baggage and the context of what I’ve done. I understand that now,” he said. “Before, you can call it uneducated, you can call it ignorance. I understand that.”The post DERANGED Anti-Trump Leftist Charged with Hate Crime After Burning Cross With MAGA Hat on Top in Chicago’s Grant Park Released From Jail — Judge Only Bans Him From Possessing Wood or Kerosene appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.