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Chicago Releases Video of Officer Baker Shooting Partner Rivera in 2025 Raid

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Newly released body-camera and security video showed Chicago police Officer Carlos Baker taking cover for roughly 90 seconds to nearly two minutes after he fatally shot his partner, Officer Krystal Rivera, before going to her aid during a 2025 drug raid on the city’s South Side chicagotribune +1. Rivera, 36, a four-year department veteran and mother, was struck once in the back and later died at the University of Chicago Medical Center; her death was ruled a homicide by the Cook County medical examiner fox32chicago.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) published the footage Friday, 10 months after the June 5, 2025 shooting in an apartment building near 82nd Street and Drexel Avenue, following an Illinois Appellate Court ruling that lifted a protective order blocking release of the videos wttw +1. Chicago police officials have long described the shooting as an “unintentional” or “accidental” friendly-fire death that occurred as officers confronted an armed suspect inside the unit wgntv.

What the Newly Released Videos Show

Baker’s body-camera video showed Rivera and Baker sprinting after a suspect into the building, with Rivera yelling, “Let me see your hands!” as they approached an apartment door chicagotribune. Baker kicked the door open; in interior surveillance footage, a man tumbled over a couch while another person retreated to a back room, and a figure appeared to point what authorities have described as a rifle toward the doorway blockclubchicago +1. A single gunshot sounded almost immediately.

The body-camera footage did not show the moment Rivera was hit, but autopsy findings indicated the bullet entered through an opening in the side of her ballistic vest, traveling through both lungs before lodging in her ribs fox32chicago. After the shot, Baker ran up a flight of stairs, radioing “Shots fired at the police!” and then remained on a stair landing for about 90 seconds to almost two minutes before descending to Rivera, dragging her toward the lobby and calling for an ambulance chicagotribune +2. Family attorneys argued the delay violated department expectations for officers to render aid as quickly as possible, while Baker’s lawyer said the officer was seeking cover from an active rifle threat and that the discharge of his weapon was “unintentional” amid the chaos chicagotribune +1.

A Family’s Lawsuit and Broader Questions About Police Conduct

Rivera’s mother, Yolanda Rivera, filed a nine-count wrongful death lawsuit in December 2025 against Baker and the city, alleging negligence, willful and wanton misconduct, and intentional infliction of emotional distress wttw. The suit claimed Baker and Rivera had an on-and-off romantic relationship that had recently ended, that Rivera had complained he was “reckless,” and that supervisors failed to separate the pair despite those concerns wttw +1. Baker has not been criminally charged in Rivera’s death, but was stripped of his police powers in August 2025 amid a separate internal investigation into an alleged bar incident wbez.

The videos’ release also intensified scrutiny of how authorities described the shooting. Months after internal investigators had viewed body-camera footage showing an officer’s gun fired the fatal shot, Chicago police told state safety regulators that an “armed suspect” had killed Rivera, a report the department had not corrected as of late August 2025 blockclubchicago. Transparency advocates and Rivera’s family attorneys have argued that the protracted legal fight over the footage, and the partial nature of the release, eroded public trust. “This is not all of the body-worn video footage from the event,” attorney Antonio Romanucci said, calling the edited clips “curated” and demanding full disclosure wbez.

The Bigger Picture

The footage raised unresolved questions about whether Baker’s actions during and after the shooting met department standards, and whether internal warnings about his conduct were ignored wttw +1. COPA’s investigation, along with ongoing criminal cases against two men prosecutors say were armed inside the apartment, will continue to shape how the city assigns responsibility for Rivera’s death nbcchicago +1. For Rivera’s family, who have framed the case as both a personal tragedy and a test of police accountability, the videos added visual evidence to a dispute that now extends from the hallway of a South Side apartment building to the courts and Chicago’s broader debate over how it polices its own.