by Tom Schuba, Casey Toner, and Peter Nickeas, Illinois Solutions Undertaking
This story was initially printed by the Illinois Solutions Undertaking.
Her voice trembling, the mom of Chicago police Officer Krystal Rivera requested a query Thursday as she introduced a wrongful dying lawsuit towards the Chicago Police Division and Officer Carlos Baker, who fatally shot her daughter shortly after their romantic relationship ended.
“The place is justice for Krystal?” Yolanda Rivera requested at a information convention. “The place is justice for my daughter, Krystal Rivera?
“I hope — and we hope — that this authorized motion brings actual solutions, actual accountability and actual change in order that no different household has to face right here the place all are standing in the present day.”
The lawsuit says Rivera dated Baker on and off for about two years however broke up with him when she discovered he had a live-in girlfriend. Rivera had threatened to inform the opposite lady about his infidelity earlier than he shot her as soon as within the again throughout a foot chase in Chatham on June 5, the lawsuit says.
Baker confirmed as much as her home uninvited the day earlier than the capturing, then the next night time he “ran in the other way and left her to die” after he fatally shot her through the chase, based on the lawsuit.
It says he did not administer assist, name for an ambulance or acknowledge to a police dispatcher that he was the shooter.
The police division has mentioned the capturing was unintended. It declined to touch upon the go well with.
A spokesperson for Prepare dinner County State’s Lawyer Eileen O’Neill Burke mentioned the capturing stays below investigation and that “no charging determination has been made.”
Antonio Romanucci, one among Yolanda Rivera’s attorneys, informed reporters Baker’s actions amounted to a “cover-up.” He mentioned the police division made a sequence of “false studies based mostly on a false narrative” to state authorities that Rivera had been shot by an armed suspect, relatively than her companion.
Timothy Grace, Baker’s lawyer, mentioned body-worn digicam footage disproves key claims within the lawsuit.
Grace mentioned the 2 officers chased a gunman into an condo and that Baker’s gun “unintentionally discharged” as he sought cowl from a second man who was aiming a rifle.
“The true info will reveal that Carlos instantly referred to as for [medical help], carried Krystal to security and ensured she was being transported to the hospital,” Grace mentioned.
Although Rivera informed folks within the police division about their relationship, they nonetheless had been allowed to maintain working as companions, based on the lawsuit. Rivera in the end requested to be reassigned, based on the go well with, due to considerations about “his reckless conduct,” saying “she believed her private security could be in danger if she continued serving as his companion.”
Her request was initially granted in June 2024, the lawsuit says, however she was informed seven months later that Baker would return as her companion on the Gresham District tactical crew.
That specialised unit has confronted a sequence of controversies in recent times.
The Chicago Solar-Instances and the Illinois Solutions Undertaking have reported that the tactical crew oversaw a botched gun buyback at St. Sabina Church in December 2023. After the weapons had been exchanged for present playing cards contained in the church, they had been taken again to the crew’s workplace within the Gresham District station, from which a turned-in .45-caliber Glock 21 handgun was stolen.
The identical Glock ended up being utilized in a sequence of shootings, together with one wherein a girl was struck within the leg, earlier than law enforcement officials recovered it from a 16-year-old boy who was attempting to interrupt into automobiles.
Rivera’s title was listed on the stock paperwork for the Glock that was stolen and for a smaller handgun that had been switched to hide the Glock’s disappearance.
However Rivera informed investigators she was unaware of the change and, after studying the gun was lacking, had looked for it in her colleague’s ebook bag. Sgt. Robert Brown, who oversaw the gun buyback, was given a one-day suspension over the lacking gun. Rivera wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing and cooperated with investigators.
Cmdr. Michael Tate, who led the Gresham District through the buyback and on the time of Rivera’s dying, was promoted in latest weeks to road deputy, a high-ranking place accountable for responding to and commanding the scene at main occasions citywide.
In August, information present, Tate and Baker exchanged calls after Baker and one other lady allegedly hit a 29-year-old feminine cop within the face at a Wicker Park bar.
Requested for remark Thursday, Tate hung up on a reporter.
Baker hasn’t been charged within the deadly capturing of his companion or the bar battle. He has been stripped of his policing powers however solely after he allegedly referred to as a close-by enterprise posing as an investigator and tried to acquire video footage of what occurred within the bar.
Yolanda Rivera’s attorneys pointed to Baker’s prolonged file of disciplinary complaints, seizing on one other incident wherein he was accused of accosting a girl at a bar in December 2022 and flashing a gun at her after she refused to this point him. The lady stopped cooperating with investigators, and the case was closed.
“Carlos Baker’s actions in the direction of ladies weren’t a secret,” Rivera household lawyer Maura White mentioned. “The town of Chicago was on discover of his hazard to ladies as early as 2022.”
