by Peter Nickeas, Tom Schuba and Casey Toner
This story was initially revealed by the Illinois Solutions Challenge.
Carlos Baker, the Chicago police officer who shot and killed his companion Krystal Rivera throughout a foot pursuit earlier this 12 months, allegedly attacked a feminine officer late Sunday at a bar in Wicker Park, the Chicago Solar-Occasions and Illinois Solutions Challenge have discovered.
The officer who was injured within the assault filed a police report whereas she was being handled for a cut up lip at Rush College Medical Middle, alleging that Baker and one other lady beat her late Sunday at DSTRKT Bar & Grill, 1540 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Baker and one other lady approached the 29-year-old officer whereas she was ready for a rideshare car within the bar’s vestibule and pressured her to delete movies taken on her cellphone, in keeping with police sources. Throughout an argument over the movies, Baker and the lady allegedly “hit her in her facial space.”
The injured officer escaped, with the assistance of others, and had a buddy take her to Rush Hospital, the place she acquired two stitches to shut a reduce on her swollen higher lip, sources stated. An proof technician documented the officer’s accidents at her dwelling, sources stated.
She informed investigators she wasn’t on the bar with Baker or the opposite lady, and didn’t determine herself as an officer throughout the assault, sources stated. It’s not clear what’s on the movies.
A COPA spokeswoman stated the oversight company is investigating the alleged assault. A police spokeswoman stated no arrests have been made.
Baker fatally shot Rivera, a fellow Gresham District tactical officer, throughout a June 5 foot chase right into a Chatham condo crammed with medication and weapons. Officers, and Baker’s lawyer, have referred to the capturing as an accident, however Rivera’s household has known as for an outdoor investigation and the discharge of physique digicam movies taken that evening.
A Solar-Occasions and Illinois Solutions Challenge investigation revealed that Rivera had been a key witness to the theft of a Glock handgun that was turned over to police at a buyback occasion in December 2023 after which stolen from a room stuffed with cops on the Gresham District station.
Rivera informed inside affairs investigators she tried to search out the gun in her colleague’s bookbags as soon as realizing it was lacking. The gun was later utilized in a collection of shootings and was finally discovered on a teenage boy.
“We now have so many questions that must be answered,” the household’s lawyer, Antonio Romanucci, stated at a information convention final month. “And we don’t but belief the narrative that Officer Rivera was shot and killed by her companion throughout a pursuit of suspects who by no means fired a shot.”
Baker’s brief profession as a cop has been marred by disciplinary issues from the beginning, together with a grievance stemming from one other interplay with a lady at a bar.
Whereas Baker was nonetheless a probationary officer in late 2022, a lady he met on Instagram accused him of monitoring her down whereas she was on a date and lifting his shirt to disclose a gun contained in the Bluelight bar throughout from the police station at Belmont and Western avenues.
The investigation was dealt with by a particular squad within the Civilian Workplace of Police Accountability that offers with sexual misconduct complaints, however it was by no means referred to the police division for a felony investigation. COPA’s probe was closed when an investigator was unable to achieve the sufferer, information present.
Baker has confronted greater than a dozen allegations of misconduct since becoming a member of the police division in December 2021. The grievance over the Bluelight incident and a handful of others had been lodged when he was nonetheless a probationary officer and will have been summarily fired.
The police division hasn’t defined why Baker was in a position to hold his job when he was the topic of great complaints throughout his probationary interval. The division additionally declined to reply most different questions posed about Baker’s conduct or the capturing in June that left his companion useless.
The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police Lodge and a spokeswoman for Rivera’s household didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. Baker couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
Since Rivera’s demise in early June, the Prepare dinner County state’s lawyer’s workplace obtained an order stopping the discharge of information regarding the interior affairs investigation and an underlying felony case towards the suspects Baker and Rivera had been chasing earlier than the capturing.
That order prevented the discharge of video and different information that will have usually occurred 60 days after the capturing — about one week in the past. COPA has stated it didn’t, and doesn’t, search orders stopping the discharge of information.
The police division has pointed to that order in denying the discharge of information associated to the capturing, and in addition denying the discharge of different information associated to Baker and Rivera’s employment and conduct as officers.
The Higher Authorities Affiliation, which publishes Illinois Solutions, the Solar-Occasions, NBC Chicago, and journalist Jamie Kalven filed a movement final week in Prepare dinner County Circuit Court docket searching for to undo the secrecy order stopping launch of information within the case.
