A Cook County judge declined Wednesday to lift an order barring the release of body-camera videos and other records related to the fatal shooting of Chicago police Officer Krystal Rivera earlier this year.
Rivera was shot and killed by her partner, Officer Carlos Baker, during a June 5 foot chase into a Chatham apartment that police said was filled with drugs and guns.
An order issued just over a week later has blocked the release of “any materials” related to the criminal and disciplinary investigations stemming from the shooting.
The Chicago Sun-Times, the Better Government Association and other news organizations went to court Aug. 7, challenging the order and calling for “transparency, not secrecy.”
But Cook County Judge Barbara Lynette Dawkins ruled that the order will stay in place even though the prosecution and defense didn’t object to the order being lifted.
During the hearing, Dawkins said she’d gotten a phone call from “her boss” and briefly left the courtroom to take it. Minutes later, she read her ruling aloud.
Mary Wisniewski, a spokesperson for Chief Cook County Judge Timothy Evans, wouldn’t say who made the call, what it was about or whether it related to the secrecy order. Wisniewski said an Illinois Supreme Court ethics rule bars Dawkins from commenting on the pending case.
The secrecy order was issued in the criminal case of Adrian Rucker, one of two men charged in connection with Rivera’s death. Authorities have said he aimed a gun at the officers when they entered the apartment. Rucker and the other defendant, Jaylin Arnold, have been indicted on gun and drug charges.
Rivera had been a key witness to the theft of a Glock handgun that was swiped from the Gresham District station in late 2023 after it was recovered at a gun turn-in event. The Glock was later used in a series of shootings.
Officials have framed Rivera’s death as a tragic mishap. But her family has called for an independent investigation and raised questions about Baker’s fitness as a police officer, pointing to the young cop’s lengthy disciplinary record.
Baker was stripped of his policing powers last month after the Sun-Times and the BGA’s Illinois Answers Project reported that a female officer accused him of attacking her at a bar in Wicker Park. The city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating.
The Chicago Police Department later opened another investigation into an accusation that Baker had tried to get video of the incident from a business by saying he was investigating what happened.
On Wednesday, Rivera’s name was expected to be added to a memorial wall at the Gold Star Families Memorial and Park.