The metropolis on Friday launched body camera videos displaying the demise of Officer Krystal Rivera, the tactical officer fatally shot final 12 months by her associate within the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
The footage revealed by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability begins displaying Rivera and her associate, Carlos Baker, chasing a suspect into an house constructing.
In the tense situation that unfolded on the cameras, Rivera ran towards the doorway to the constructing and yelled, “Let me see your hands!” as she tried to achieve entry. “Let me see your (expletive) hands, bro!” Baker yelled.
Rivera and Baker had been shortly buzzed inside and the 2 rushed up a flight of stairs after the suspect, the videos present. As the suspect entered a unit, Baker adopted shut behind, with Rivera behind him. Baker might be seen kicking the door, and a person toppled over a sofa inside.
Baker pivoted to his proper, in accordance with the video from his digicam, which was aimed towards the wall outdoors the unit. A gunshot fired by him might be heard. Rivera, not but within the doorway, is struck and falls within the hallway outdoors the unit.
Baker instantly radioed to dispatchers, “Shots fired at the police!”
Baker retreated up one other flight up stairs and referred to as out to Rivera.
“Krystal, you good?” Baker requested, with no response.
He continued to name for assist.
“Need an ambulance now, I can’t get my partner,” Baker yelled into his radio. “Squad, my partner is hit, my partner is hit. Get me an ambulance now.”
As scores of law enforcement officials went to the scene, Baker remained sitting on the steps for about two minutes catching his breath, his body-worn digicam footage exhibits.
Rivera’s personal digicam exhibits she by no means arrived on the house door and apparently was within the hallway resulting in it when she was struck. The launched footage stops simply after she was shot.
The Cook County medical expert’s workplace discovered that the deadly shot pierced Rivera’s skin near her left armpit and traveled by means of each her lungs, wedging itself in her ribs, post-mortem information present.
Baker requested one other resident of the constructing to name 911 and he then went again right down to the second flooring, the place Rivera was mendacity face-up on the ground with blood pooling underneath her.
Baker, nonetheless by himself, grabbed Rivera’s bulletproof vest and dragged her to the first-floor foyer, the place he was met by different responding CPD officers. He urged them to take her to UChicago Medicine.
“Get her in the car now!” he yelled.
Rivera, a four-year CPD veteran with a younger daughter, was killed after her tactical staff responded to a report of an individual with a gun round 9:50 p.m. on June 5, 2025 within the 8200 block of South Drexel Avenue. Less than a 12 months earlier, one other CPD officer, Enrique Martinez, was shot and killed throughout an tried site visitors cease a few half-mile away.
Late final 12 months Rivera’s family filed a nine-count lawsuit towards Baker, the town and CPD, alleging willful and wanton conduct, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional misery. The subsequent listening to within the case is scheduled for early June, courtroom information present. A consultant for Rivera’s household didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the videos’ launch.
“Every day is painful as we continue to grieve the loss of my daughter, Krystal,” Rivera’s mom, Yolanda Rivera, stated at a information convention final 12 months. “Her baby, her sisters, our household, (and) a complete neighborhood miss her deeply.
“From this moment forward, my purpose is simple: that those responsible for her death must be held accountable.”
Rivera’s household has alleged that she and Baker had been beforehand in a romantic relationship, however Rivera broke issues off shortly earlier than she was shot.
In early 2025, Rivera discovered that Baker was courting one other girl whom he was additionally residing with, her household has alleged. Rivera, at that time unaware of Baker’s different relationship, instructed him that she deliberate to talk with the opposite girl. Baker tried to dissuade her, and Rivera ended the connection in late May 2025, in accordance with courtroom filings.
On June 4, Baker “show(ed) up uninvited” at Rivera’s residence after she instructed him to remain away. The following day, Baker fatally shot her. Rivera’s household’s attorneys famous, too, that within the months earlier than her demise, Rivera “told her supervisors that Carlos Baker was reckless” and requested that she be reassigned with a brand new associate.
Attorneys for Rivera’s household stated Baker was profoundly unfit to be a police officer, as demonstrated by the 11 misconduct complaints by which he was a topic within the years earlier than he shot and killed Rivera.
“He never should have been a Chicago police officer. He never should have got past his probationary period. He was not fit to police our communities, let alone carry a gun under the color of law,” legal professional Antonio Romanucci has stated.
In December, Romanucci stated Rivera was in a tactical place, standing behind Baker, when she was shot. He didn’t clarify how Rivera was shot from behind, however stated “somehow he managed to shoot her on a 180-degree angle.”
In a press release to the Tribune, a consultant for CPD stated: “Our hearts remain with fallen Officer Krystal Rivera’s family. These videos are difficult to watch, and we remind members of the public that there is an active Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) investigation, which CPD continues to cooperate with. Due to this active investigation, we have no further comment.”
About two months after the shooting, Baker was stripped of his police powers whereas COPA opened one other investigation after Baker allegedly injured one other feminine CPD officer at a bar in Wicker Park.
In a press release beforehand offered to the Tribune, Baker’s legal professional, Tim Grace, expressed grief and sympathy to Rivera’s household however positioned blame for her demise on the suspect they had been chasing. Further, Grace stated the then-unreleased CPD body-camera footage refutes the claims by Rivera’s household.
“The facts are clear that Officer Baker breached the door on that fateful night and was facing the lethal end of a rifle,” Grace stated. “While transferring to hunt cowl and unbeknownst to him, his weapon unintentionally discharged placing Krystal.
“The height of both officers, their location, the angle of the service weapon and the exact positioning of both officers created a unique, dynamic and deadly circumstance that could not be duplicated in a controlled environment, not to mention the actual situation they were confronted with,” Grace added. “The true facts will reveal that Carlos immediately called for EMS, carried Krystal to safety and ensured she was being transported to the hospital. He then reentered the apartment to apprehend the offenders. The body worn camera videos will support these facts and challenge the accuracy and veracity of the allegations made in the complaint.”
Though two males now face an array of weapons and narcotics costs in reference to the shooting, neither faces a rely of homicide in her demise. The two, Adrian Rucker and Jaylin Arnold, stay in Cook County Jail as their instances stay pending.
Representatives for the Cook County state’s legal professional’s workplace and attorneys for Rucker and Arnold declined to touch upon the discharge of the footage.
In March, a panel of Illinois Appellate Court judges reversed a Cook County choose’s order that barred the discharge of the videos. The appellate judges discovered Cook County Judge Barbara Dawkins incorrectly denied a movement final 12 months filed by a number of Chicago media retailers to raise a protecting order on the footage.
The prison instances on the heart of the choose’s order to bar disclosure are towards two males, Adrian Rucker and Jaylin Arnold, dealing with costs of armed violence and different felonies in reference to the underlying occasions round Rivera’s shooting.
Last 12 months, Cook County prosecutors first requested that video footage be barred from disclosure by way of Freedom of Information Act legal guidelines, which was then granted by Judge Deidre Dyer.
Later, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Better Government Association, NBC Chicago and Jamie Kalven, founder of the Invisible Institute, filed a movement in courtroom to intervene within the case, arguing that the state offered no “legal or factual justification” to deviate from public information legal guidelines.
Rivera was the primary CPD officer to die in a friendly-fire incident in practically 4 many years.
In 1986, Officer Jay Brunkella was fatally shot by his associate whereas the associate was fighting a narcotics suspect in Rogers Park. That suspect was later convicted of Brunkella’s homicide and sentenced to twenty years in jail, the Tribune beforehand reported.
Two years earlier, Officer Dorelle Brandon was fatally shot by her associate whereas she, too, struggled to arrest a narcotics suspect. That suspect was charged with homicide in Brandon’s demise, however was acquitted. However, he was convicted of a narcotics cost and sentenced to seven years in jail. Brandon was the primary feminine CPD officer to die within the line of responsibility.
