Chicago police are investigating after a cross was burned in Grant Park.
Police said officers and firefighters responded to the 600 block of South Columbus Drive around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday after reports came in of an “object” on fire. Firefighters extinguished the blaze.
Video posted on social media shows a wooden cross burning as it leans against a tree. Flames spread onto the bark of the tree trunk while someone runs away in the background, the video shows.
The “motives and circumstances” of the burning are under investigation, police said. No one was hurt and no one is in custody.
Burning crosses have historically been associated with white supremacy and, more specifically, the Klu Klux Klan.
A South Carolina man was hit with federal charges in April for an alleged 2023 cross burning in which he torched the relic in his yard after months of harassing his Black neighbors.
A Mississippi man who burned a cross in his front yard to intimidate his Black neighbors in 2020 was sentenced to 42 months in prison.