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

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.

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The 2025-26 campus hate crime hoaxes: A complete roundup

As in years past, campus hate hoax incidents did not let up during the 2025-26 school year. From incidents that did occur but were not hateful, to crimes that likely did not happen, this school year saw plenty of hoaxes. 

And no, The College Fix is not talking about Ku Klux Klan rallies that were funded by the Southern Poverty Law Center so that they could fundraise off that reemergence of the KKK. If that did happen, it would certainly be wrong! 

Here is a roundup of the hate hoaxes of the past school year:

  • Just earlier this week, a University of Illinois Chicago student admitted to setting up a burning cross as a protest against Trump.
  • Virginia Tech professor claims to be victim of racist attack – after white teens clean snow off truck in front of his house. 
  • Journalist claims guy holding n-word sign is white – he was black.
  • Montana State University Chinese student writes anti-Asian messages, tries to blame Turning Point USA, gets sent to jail. 
  • Black University of Minnesota student blames conservatives angry about Charlie Kirk assassination for hoax threats.
  • Police conclude there was “no probable cause” that racist slurs led to brawling at a high school basketball game.
  • Student paints obscure cross on Northwestern University rock – LGBT activists call it “cruel behavior,” find a way to blame Trump. 
  • Purdue University basketball player says his family was subjected to racist slurs during University of Illinois game – school determines there is no truth to this allegation.
  • Kansas State University women’s soccer team plays songs with racial slurs, then gets the coach punished after she repeats the n-word to make a point. 
  • Nearly half of University of Iowa hate crimes are scribbles on a whiteboard.
  • Several campuses hit with fake active shooter alerts.

Seeking justice

In some cases, the accused fought back against fake racism claims.

  • High school teacher wins defamation lawsuit after seating chart comments.
  • White college student wins $3.2 million judgement over false racism claims from when he was a kid.
  • College student wins judgement over fake “blackface” allegations but still lives with repercussions.
  • University of Notre Dame beats back lawsuit from Chinese man who claimed Uyghur genocide claims defamed all of China and would inspire racism.

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Chicago Cross-Burning Incident Blamed on ‘White Supremacists’ was Carried Out by Leftist Anti-Trump/Anti-MAGA Protester

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.”

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Brandon Johnson said the police investigation “remains ongoing.”

“Like many Chicagoans across our city, we were deeply disturbed upon seeing the images which have emerged following this incident,” the statement said. “Hate has no place in our city. Every Chicagoan deserves to feel safe, protected, and respected while going about their day or enjoying our public spaces.”

Several members of the council’s Black Caucus learned about the incident Wednesday morning when asked about it by Block Club Chicago. Ald. Greg Mitchell (7th) was initially speechless when a reporter showed him a photo of the burning cross.

“I can’t believe it’s 2026, we are still dealing with stuff like that … That’s the simplest I can put it,” Mitchell said.

As it turns out, however, the cross-burner is an Asian man, Merlin Lu, who burned the cross, adorned with a MAGA hat, to protest President Trump and MAGA.

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HATE HOAX: North Carolina spray paint swastika vandal revealed to be black man charged with aiming gun at cars

A suspect drawing swastikas on property in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has been revealed to be a black man who has also been arrested on charges of pointing a gun at people and passing cars.

Taquon Jameek Vereen, 18, has been identified as the suspect who was caught on video spray painting the Nazi symbol on a building as well as other property.

He posted a $1,500 bond on Tuesday for the swastika incident. However, later that same day, he was arrested for pointing a gun at passing cars and people on the street. Police said that they got multiple calls about a black man pointing a gun at people on the street.

police release read, “Upon arrival, officers located a male matching the description provided by witnesses. When the suspect observed the officers, he fled the scene on foot. Following a brief pursuit, he was located and apprehended without further incident along the 7500 block of Bridgeman Drive. A handgun was recovered at the scene.”

He is now being held at $2,500 bond for the charges related to pointing the gun at people on the street.

“Taquon Vereen was arrested and charged with Going Armed to the Terror of People and Assault by Pointing a Gun. Vereen is currently being held at the Cumberland County Detention Center under a $2,500.00 secured bond,” the police statement added.

Vereen was arrested on May 6 for drawing the swastikas and was charged with two counts of damage to real property and second-degree trespassing.

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When is a Hate Crime Not a Hate Crime? In Two-Tier Britain, When it’s Against Whites

When is a hate crime not a hate crime? In two-tier Britain, the answer is when it’s against whites. I’ve previously written at length about this double standard for the Daily Sceptic, with the most obvious example of it being the failure over many years to ever prosecute the grooming gangs as racial hate crimes. It’s clear these laws were two-tier from the beginning, and the way the multicultural state continues to work means there is every incentive that they stay that way.

But when offences aren’t treated as hate crimes that probably should be, who precisely is to blame? Is it the fault of the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, or the courts – or all three? Here are three recent cases which would seem to fit the bill of anti-white hate crimes which weren’t treated as such – and the way the authorities have attempted to explain to me why they weren’t.

Amar Hussain

During the Southport unrest an armed Muslim mob attacked the Clumsy Swan pub in Bordesley Green, Birmingham. This formed part of considerable disorder in the Bordesley Green area on August 5th 2024 in part of an “anti-EDL protest” by local Muslims, organised supposedly to defend a local mosque after a rumours of a ‘far-Right’ march that day (this did not transpire). This “protest” involved large groups of masked Muslim men, many of them bearing Palestine flags, menacing reporters, attacking one terrified Skoda driver and trying to kick in the barricaded doors of the Clumsy Swan as families sheltered inside.

One of those to attack the Clumsy Swan was 34 year-old Amar Hussain. While most of the customers had sheltered inside, one lone white man remained outside, Sean McDonagh, 51, and he was set upon by Hussain and others, punched and kicked to the ground, and left needing to be hospitalised with a lacerated liver.

Hussain pleaded guilty to violent disorder and assault by beating, receiving for his two offences one month less than Lucy Connolly did for her single tweet. Hussain’s paltry sentence for the unprovoked attack could have been much higher if the offence were treated as a hate crime. Why wasn’t it? The CPS told me this: “The EDL is not recognised as a racial or religious group. There were no factors in the behaviour that made this a specific assault due to religious or racial motivations.”

This is a bizarre excuse and indeed, an outrageous one. “No factors”? Was the fact that a Muslim mob set upon a random white bloke, the only one not barricaded inside the pub, not a factor? What about the assault on the pub itself, pubs being bastions of Englishness in a highly segregated city in which notionally non-drinking Muslims rarely step? The claim that the English Defence League is not a recognised racial group, meanwhile, is not only puzzling (are the English not a racial group?) but is in a total non-sequitur. McDonagh was not a member of the EDL (the group has been defunct for several years). He was simply white man standing outside a pub not holding a Palestine flag. This was apparently all it took for this anti-EDL mob to unleash its violent fury upon him; he was clearly targeted as an Englishman and non-Muslim. But in the apparent absence of a specific exclamation like ‘get whitey’ or ‘you white bastard’, the CPS insists this mob was entirely colourblind.

Ameer Khalile

The previous day at the other end of the Pennines in Middlesborough, Ameer Khalile was part of another Muslim mob which shouted “white racist scum” as they chased a man down the street, before Khalile stamped on his victim’s head in a “vicious and violent” attack. The judge noted that his innocent victim, who, having been left face down in a ditch, could easily have drowned, was “probably attacked because he was white”. Khalile’s sentence for violent disorder and attempted grievous bodily harm with intent was just 34 months.

When I initially asked the CPS why the offence hadn’t been prosecuted as racially aggravated, I was told that in fact it had. What followed was a long back and forth in which, essentially, the court and the CPS blamed each other for racial aggravation not having been considered.

The CPS said: “At Ameer Khalile’s sentencing the prosecution asked the judge to consider that his offence was racially aggravated, under section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020.” However, in his sentencing remarks, which I obtained, Judge Richard Clews said (emphasis mine):

The attempted causing grievous bodily with intent took place first, it’s captured on CCTV. You were part of a group that attacked Lewis Cook for no other reason, it seems to me, other than that he appeared to be simply in your path at the time and was a convenient target. As far I can tell, he done absolutely nothing wrong and nothing to any of you, and he was probably attacked because he was white, indeed certain comments were made by members of the group to that effect. You’re not charged with a racially aggravated offence, that much is clear, and I, therefore, take that into account. There’s no evidence it was you who uttered those words, and although you might have been associated with them, I can’t be sure of that.

When I put these comments at sentencing to the CPS, a press officer, having double-checked, said that “our advocate in court did ask the judge to impose an uplift”. He then appeared to question the judge’s ruling, adding: “We’re not sure why this is not reflected in the judge’s sentencing remarks.”

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Shocking decision to not charge suspects with hate crime in brutal attack on Hebrew-speaking diners

The three suspects accused of brutally assaulting two Israeli-Americans outside a diner in San Jose, Northern California, will not face hate crime charges in the attack, prosecutors revealed.

The three men — Ramon Akoyans, 18, Roma Akoyans, 20, and Bruneil Chamaki, 32 — were hit with felony assault charges, while Chamaki faced an additional misdemeanor battery charge after they turned themselves in to the San Jose Police Department on Monday.

Investigators had been looking at the attack as a potential hate crime after the Hebrew-speaking victims alleged their attackers used antisemitic language.

It’s not clear why prosecutors did not move forward with hate crime charges, though the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office said the case “remains an active investigation.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the attacks as “disgusting” and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said that “antisemitism and all acts of hatred have no place in San Jose.”

The shocking assault took place in broad daylight on March 8 outside the upmarket restaurant Augustine on Santana Row.

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Former TV Reporter Arrested After Palomar Mountain Shootings Investigation

A former television news reporter has been arrested in connection with two shootings in San Diego County that investigators say may have been motivated by race, as reported by The New York Post.

Ricardo Berron, a former on-air reporter for the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo, was taken into custody on March 10 at San Diego International Airport as he was preparing to leave for a vacation, according to authorities.

Following his arrest, Berron briefly addressed the allegations when speaking outside his home in Chula Vista.

“Pretty soon everything will be cleared up,” Ricardo Berron told the California Post at his $900,000 home, where he lives with his wife and children.

Berron, 46, is a married father of five. The four-bedroom, two-bathroom home sits at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac approximately 11 miles from downtown San Diego. The property measures about 1,700 square feet.

Law enforcement officials say Berron is facing potential hate crime charges connected to two separate shootings involving Hispanic victims on Palomar Mountain, located about 67 miles north of Chula Vista.

Authorities believe the same suspect was involved in both incidents.

Investigators allege Berron targeted the victims because of their ethnicity.

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UK Government Brands Union Flag A ‘TOOL OF HATE’ In Leaked ‘Social Cohesion’ Strategy

A leaked draft of the UK Government’s new ‘social cohesion’ strategy has sparked outrage by labeling the flying of English, Scottish, and Union Jack flags as potential “tools of hate.”

The document claims these national symbols were sometimes used last summer to “exclude or intimidate,” adding that the “extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate.”

The 47-page draft, leaked to the Spectator magazine, also highlights how antisemitism has become “normalised in many corners of society” from schools and universities to workplaces and the NHS.

Under the proposals, titled Protecting What Matters, some £800 million over 10 years would be allocated to 40 areas where social cohesion is “under pressure.”

The strategy is set for a cross-Government rollout next week, but critics are already slamming it as divisive.

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice blasted the draft, telling the Sun: “Absurdly, this says our national flag is a tool of hate used to intimidate. The whole paper is a divisive nonsense that should be consigned to the bin.”

The leak ties directly into ongoing controversies over national flags, as detailed in our previous coverage where English councils admitted spending tens of thousands to remove “unauthorised” English and Union Jack flags from lampposts.

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Virginia Tech Professor’s Hate Crime Allegation Turned Out to Be a Total Hoax

I feel like this is the 7654th story that’s been debunked. Since 2016, one of the many deranged liberal narratives has been that Trump’s America is racist. That election exposed the cruel underbelly of America, but it’s liberals who are making it that way, and they’re the ones guilty of committing these racial hoaxes to manufacture a narrative that doesn’t exist. It’s a sick irony—delusional, really.

Earlier this month, a Virginia Tech professor alleged that a group of white kids committed a hate crime against him by blasting rap music and dumping snow near his property. If you think that sounds weak, it’s because it is: police conducted an investigation that debunked this discount Jussie Smollett tale (via NY Post):

Dr. Onwubiko Agozino, a sociology professor at the Virginia university, claimed in a Feb. 10 police report that eight white minors racially targeted him when they rolled up to his Christiansburg home blaring offensive music, throwing ice blocks, and hurling a flurry of racist jabs, including the N-word. 

He told authorities the “profane” music included “racial slurs,” with local woke activists, New River Valley Indivisible, labeling the incident as a “calculated effort to terrorize and intimidate” Agozino and his family.

[…] 

But the so-called racist assault was quickly debunked after local police launched an investigation. 

Cops discovered the teens were attending a house party nearby and were merely clearing snow and ice from their truck bed, according to the Christiansburg Police Department. 

“There have been incorrect reports that this may have been a targeted incident toward a specific residence or person based on racial bias,” the department posted on Facebook Feb. 12. 

“Our investigation has found no evidence of criminal intent or racial bias. At no time did any juveniles yell obscenities, or direct attention to any homes in the area while clearing the snow and ice.” 

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New hate laws have passed parliament. What do they actually do?

Parliament has just passed the toughest federal hate speech laws in Australia’s history.

Labor has been open that the legislation, introduced in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, is primarily aimed at tackling “hate groups” that promote antisemitism — and that revisiting the laws to include other minority groups is not a priority.

The legislation passed with Liberal Party support, though the Nationals, Greens and One Nation voted against it, citing various concerns around free speech.

Where did the laws land?

Labor’s draft legislation included a provision to criminalise the promotion or incitement of racial hatred, which was a recommendation of antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal and broadly supported by Jewish groups.

Despite calling for Ms Segal’s report to be implemented in full, various Coalition members raised concerns the draft bill would excessively impinge on free speech — a position shared by the Greens, constitutional lawyers and various faith leaders.

After both the Coalition and Greens rejected the new offence, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dumped it.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke this week said the government “would have liked the laws to be even stronger” but what has passed represented “the strongest hate laws Australia’s ever had”.

The laws grant powers for the government to list so-called hate groups, more easily deport or cancel the visas of individuals associated with hate groups, increase penalties for hate crime offences, and create new aggravated penalties for hate preachers and leaders who advocate violence.

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