Officer Carlos Baker, the Chicago cop who fatally shot his partner Krystal Rivera while pursuing a suspect, was stripped of his police powers on Friday — but not for the shooting.
The action came days after the Chicago Sun-Times and the Illinois Answers Project reported that a female officer accused him of attacking her at a bar in Wicker Park.
After that story was published, the Chicago Police Department opened an internal investigation into an accusation that Baker had tried to get video of the incident from a business, saying he was investigating what happened.
A police spokesperson confirmed Friday that Baker was relieved of his police powers in light of the new accusations.
Timothy Grace, Baker’s police union lawyer, said Baker wasn’t involved in any bar fight and didn’t abuse his authority by trying to personally investigate the incident.
“There’s a lot of hyperbole about what may or may not have happened, and I think this is a knee-jerk reaction by the city of Chicago,” Grace said. “We look forward to when all of the evidence comes out.”
John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, the union representing rank-and-file Chicago cops, said Baker is “innocent until proven guilty.”
in his short time as a Chicago cop, Baker has been faced a number of disciplinary issues, including a complaint that he approached a woman he met on Instagram at a bar, then lifted his shirt to reveal a gun in his waistband when he saw her with another man.
That complaint and others were lodged against him while he was still a probationary officer and could have been summarily fired.
On June 5, Baker fatally shot Rivera, a fellow Gresham District tactical officer, during a foot chase into a Chatham apartment the police said was filled with drugs and guns.
Police officials and Baker’s lawyer have said the shooting was an accident, but Rivera’s family has called for an outside investigation and the release of body-camera video from that night.
A Sun-Times and Illinois Answers Project investigation found that Rivera had been a key witness to the theft of a Glock handgun that was turned over to police at a gun-buyback event in December 2023 and then disappeard from a room full of cops at the Gresham District station.
Rivera told police internal affairs investigators she tried to find the gun in her colleagues’ book bags once she realized it was missing. The gun later was used in a series of shootings and later was found in the possession of a teenage boy.
This week, while Baker was on a medical leave, a female officer filed a police report in which she said Baker and another woman beat her late Sunday at the DSTRKT Bar & Grill, 1540 N. Milwaukee Ave.
According to police sources, Baker and the woman approached the 29-year-old officer while she was waiting for a ride-share vehicle in the bar’s vestibule and pressured her to delete videos taken on her cellphone. During an argument over the videos, Baker and the woman hit the other officer in the face, according to sources.
The injured officer was treated at Rush University Medical Center, where she got two stitches to close a cut on her swollen upper lip, sources said. An evidence technician documented the officer’s injuries at her home.
She told investigators she wasn’t at the bar with Baker or the other woman and didn’t identify herself as an officer during the attack, sources said. It’s not clear what’s on the videos.
The city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating.
On Thursday, CBS Chicago reported that Baker allegedly called a neighboring business, identified himself as an investigator and asked for access to the surveillance cameras.
COPA declined to comment.
Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for Rivera’s family, said Baker should have been relieved of his police powers “from the earliest days” of the shooting investigation.
“However, as we stated clearly several weeks ago, the concerns about Carlos Baker go back further than the night he killed Krystal,” Romanucci said. “The city hired this rogue police officer despite knowing he was a danger to the community while he was a probationary officer. They took affirmative action to hire Carlos Baker when the only action should have been to terminate his probation and ensure he never wore a CPD shield or carried a gun.
“Krystal Rivera would be alive today. Were it not for [the] decision to hire, she would be alive.”
Peter Nickeas and Casey Toner report for the llinois Answers Project.