An attorney for the family of Chicago police Officer Krystal Rivera, who was fatally shot by her partner, Carlos Baker, said Wednesday that Baker never should have been a police officer in light of a serious complaint made against him during his probationary period, and that the death of Rivera “should have never happened.”
At a news conference, attorney Antonio Romanucci called for an independent investigation of the shooting, saying the Chicago Police Department’s narrative regarding what happened “does not pass the smell test.” He asked the department to publicly release Baker’s full disciplinary record as well as police bodycam footage from a night he said left the family with more questions than answers.
“We have many questions that need to be answered,” Romanucci said. “And we don’t yet trust the narrative that officer Rivera was shot and killed by her partner during a pursuit of suspects who never fired a shot.”
Romanucci wrote police Supt. Larry Snelling a letter on Friday, requesting that he ask the Illinois State Police to conduct an independent criminal investigation into the shooting and that he release video, audio and other evidence from the shooting.
Romanucci said Snelling has not answered him. A spokesperson for the state police said the Chicago Police Department has not requested an investigation.
The city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating the shooting but not as a criminal matter.
“Please share and explain what happened here fully in the same way you would have had she been shot and killed by someone not wearing a CPD uniform,” Romanucci wrote.
The Chicago Police Department did not respond when asked to comment on Romanucci’s request.
Authorities say Rivera was accidentally shot to death in early June by Baker as they chased a man with a gun into an apartment building. The two officers, who were working on the Gresham District tactical team, were soon confronted by another armed man. Baker opened fire, unintentionally hitting Rivera, authorities have said.
Rivera’s mother, Yolanda Rivera, said Wednesday she needs to know exactly what happened at the shooting. Romanucci said the police department showed Rivera’s family bodycam video of the shooting “days” after it happened, but the video left them wanting for answers.
“I need to understand what happened that night,” Yolanda Rivera said, her voice cracking. “I need to know the truth. Krystal believed in protecting and serving with honor … Let this moment be guided by truth.”
Romanucci pointed to Baker’s lengthy disciplinary record and he should have been fired as a probationary officer.
The Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that Baker faced more than a dozen complaints in his short career and faced three suspensions and two reprimands.
Only 5% of Chicago police had six or more misconduct complaints from 2018 through 2023, according to data gathered by the Invisible Institute.
Baker had been an officer for about three and a half years at the time he shot his partner.
Romanucci zeroed in on a complaint against Baker in December 2022 in which a woman said Baker flashed a gun at her at a North Side bar and swore at her while she was on a date with another man. She knew Baker after meeting him on Instagram. She did not cooperate with investigators from COPA, and Baker faced no discipline as a result, records show.
“Those aren’t even warning signs…Those are just career-killers,” Romanucci said of some of the complaints.
The gun-flashing complaint was made when Baker was on probation, and he could have been fired then because he lacked most union protections.
“We believe the warning signs were there for years,” the attorney said. “Had he not been there, Krystal would have been alive.”
Romanucci questioned why Baker didn’t face a criminal investigation over the gun-flashing incident and said such an incident would typically end a probationary officer’s career. He asked whether authorities interviewed the man the woman was with at the time he was alleged to have flashed the gun.
The police have declined to answer questions regarding any investigation into the allegation.
A police spokesman said Wednesday, “The officer involved will remain on routine administration duties.”
The closing memo for COPA’s investigation into the gun-flashing incident said that “should other information become available, or the complainant decides to cooperate later, COPA may reopen the investigation.”
In most cases, COPA is required to release records within 60 days after an officer shoots someone. But after one of the men alleged to have been inside the apartment was charged with armed violence, prosecutors obtained a court order preventing the release of those records and others.
A Cook County state’s attorney’s spokesperson said Wednesday it would be “inappropriate” to try to change the order unilaterally.
The police have cited the court order in declining to release dozens of other records unrelated to the criminal cases or the shooting, including information about Baker’s disciplinary history.
Tim Grace, Baker’s attorney, said Wednesday the shooting was a “tragic accident” and that Baker’s discipline history was “very minor … for an officer with similar time on the job and one who is deployed to higher crime districts.
“There is no indication that Officer Baker is under any criminal investigation, and I see no reason to believe that would change,” Grace said, declining to comment on the news conference.
About 18 months before Rivera was killed, a tactical team from the same district oversaw a gun buyback at St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, and a gun from that event was stolen from the district tactical office while police inventoried the guns. Rivera was assigned to work the buyback, according to records, and Baker was not.
Rivera searched her colleagues’ bookbags, looking for the gun, once another officer realized it was missing, and she cooperated with investigators looking into the gun’s disappearance. Records released by police make clear she was not accused of doing anything wrong. The gun was later used in a series of shootings along 79th Street, and the police found it being carried by a 16-year-old boy in the South Shore neighborhood.
The police department reopened the internal investigation of the gun’s theft after the Sun-Times and the Illinois Answers Project asked the police about the incident in March.
Romanucci said Rivera was helping lead the search for the gun that had gone missing the afternoon its disappearance was discovered.
“That’s why we need to know everything here … There’s not just one piece to this puzzle here. There are so many pieces here, and we’ve got to start fitting them together.”
A Chicago Police Department spokesman has declined to answer questions about Baker, his assignment to the tactical team, department policies, the missing gun, the investigation into the missing gun or any of the dozen complaints against Baker.
The Illinois State Police often handles investigations into shootings by police officers for smaller police departments, serving as outside investigators to look for potential criminality by the shooting officers.
Peter Nickeas and Casey Toner report for the Illinois Answers Project. Anna Savchenko reports for with WBEZ. Tom Schuba reports for the Chicago Sun-Times.
