William Morgan
Hard to watch footage released by a police watchdog has shed new light on the moment officer Krystal Rivera was fatally shot by her own partner while chasing a suspect through a 'fatal tunnel'.
The video was released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability on Friday as part of their investigation into the blue-on-blue shooting incident involving Rivera and her Chicago Police Department partner Carlos Baker in June of last year.
It shows the pair running after a man they believed to be armed as he entered an apartment building in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago at around 9.50pm in June, last year. They follow him up a staircase inside the building, with Baker leading from the front.
The CPD officer can be seen on his bodycam kicking down the door to an apartment, where he sees a man flip over a couch as another man walks into the room holding a long gun. Then, inexplicably, he turns around and fires a single shot at his partner, who was standing in the hallway behind him.
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An attorney for Baker has said he 'unintentionally discharged' his service weapon during the incident, with the footage showing him fleeing up a nearby staircase while calling out 'shots fired' on his radio and asking for backup.
“Squad, my partner’s hit, my partner’s hit, get me an ambulance now,” he says over the radio, adding that he cannot reach his partner before asking for a SWAT team.
The CPD officer spends almost two minutes in this position, before walking down the staircase to Rivera, who appears unresponsive as he drags her further away from the apartment.
When backup arrived, Rivera was taken for emergency treatment, but the first vehicle she was in ended up suffering a malfunction and catching fire. She was then transported in another vehicle, but the mom-of-one succumbed to her injuries in hospital.
While a former CPD tactical officer told ABC that apartment buildings, like the one in Chatham, can form a 'fatal funnel' in these high stakes situations, alongside the local force describing the fatal shot as unintentional, Rivera's family has seen the fatal incident differently.
Four months ago, the family filed a wrongful death suit against CPD and Baker, alleging that the official narrative of an accidental weapon discharge did not pass 'the smell test'.
In part, because Baker and Rivera used to romantically entangled, with their relationship breaking down when she discovered he was seeing other women. As a result, Rivera had asked the department for a new partner.
The family also argued that the police watchdog had not released all of the footage, with a portion edited out while Rivera lay bleeding and Baker remained sat on the stairs. They said though an attorney: "This is NOT all of the body-worn video footage from the event. What has been released is a curated narrative meant to invent a false truth."
They have stated that River and Baker had started an on-and-off relationship in 2023, but Rivera had ended it last year after finding out about the other woman. She had also threatened to tell the other woman about his alleged infidelity.
Less than 48 hours before the fatal shooting, the family claims that Baker had turned up at her home unannounced, despite Rivera not wanting him there.
“Our hearts remain with fallen Officer Krystal Rivera’s family,” a CPD spokesperson said in a statement Friday. “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.”
While the local policing union have backed Baker's conduct in the shooting, which took place just 11 seconds after the officers entered the Chatham apartment block, it has emerged that he faced multiple investigations into his conduct and has since been relieved of police powers.
“We reassert that Carlos Baker was unfit to be a Chicago Police Officer and that CPD put Krystal at risk by giving him a badge and a gun,” an attorney for the family said. “More so, he failed in his duty to render life-saving aid to his Krystal after he shot her.”