Her voice trembling, the mother of Chicago police Officer Krystal Rivera asked a question Thursday as she announced a wrongful death lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department and Officer Carlos Baker, who fatally shot her daughter shortly after their romantic relationship ended.
“Where is justice for Krystal?” Yolanda Rivera asked at a news conference. “Where is justice for my daughter, Krystal Rivera?
“I hope — and we hope — that this legal action brings real answers, real accountability and real change so that no other family has to stand here where all are standing today.”
The lawsuit says Rivera dated Baker on and off for about two years but broke up with him when she found out he had a live-in girlfriend. Rivera had threatened to tell the other woman about his infidelity before he shot her once in the back during a foot chase in Chatham on June 5, the lawsuit says.
Baker showed up to her house uninvited the day before the shooting, then the following night he “ran in the opposite direction and left her to die” after he fatally shot her during the chase, according to the lawsuit.
It says he failed to administer aid, call for an ambulance or acknowledge to a police dispatcher that he was the shooter.
The police department has said the shooting was accidental. It declined to comment on the suit.
A spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said the shooting remains under investigation and that “no charging decision has been made.”
Antonio Romanucci, one of Yolanda Rivera’s lawyers, told reporters Baker’s actions amounted to a “cover-up.” And he said the police department made a series of “false reports based on a false narrative” to state authorities that Rivera had been shot by an armed suspect, rather than her partner.
Timothy Grace, Baker’s lawyer, said body-worn camera footage disproves key claims in the lawsuit.
Grace said the two officers chased a gunman into an apartment and that Baker’s gun “unintentionally discharged” as he sought cover from a second man who was aiming a rifle.
“The true facts will reveal that Carlos immediately called for [medical help], carried Krystal to safety and ensured she was being transported to the hospital,” Grace said.
Though Rivera told people in the police department about their relationship, they still were allowed to keep working as partners, according to the lawsuit. Rivera ultimately asked to be reassigned, according to the suit, because of concerns about “his reckless conduct,” saying “she believed her personal safety would be at risk if she continued serving as his partner.”
Her request was initially granted in June 2024, the lawsuit says, but she was told seven months later that Baker would return as her partner on the Gresham District tactical team.
That specialized unit has faced a series of controversies in recent years.
The Chicago Sun-Times and the Illinois Answers Proect have reported that the tactical team oversaw a botched gun buyback at St. Sabina Church in December 2023. After the guns were exchanged for gift cards inside the church, they were taken back to the team’s office in the Gresham District station, from which a turned-in .45-caliber Glock 21 handgun was stolen.
The same Glock ended up being used in a series of shootings, including one in which a woman was struck in the leg, before police officers recovered it from a 16-year-old boy who was trying to break into cars.
Rivera’s name was listed on the inventory paperwork for the Glock that was stolen and for a smaller handgun that had been switched to conceal the Glock’s disappearance.
But Rivera told investigators she was unaware of the switch and, after learning the gun was missing, had searched for it in her colleague’s book bag. Sgt. Robert Brown, who oversaw the gun buyback, was given a one-day suspension over the missing gun. Rivera wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing and cooperated with investigators.
Cmdr. Michael Tate, who led the Gresham District during the buyback and at the time of Rivera’s death, was promoted in recent weeks to street deputy, a high-ranking position responsible for responding to and commanding the scene at major events citywide.
In August, records show, Tate and Baker exchanged calls after Baker and another woman allegedly hit a 29-year-old female cop in the face at a Wicker Park bar.
Asked for comment Thursday, Tate hung up on a reporter.
Baker hasn’t been charged in the fatal shooting of his partner or the bar fight. He has been stripped of his policing powers but only after he allegedly called a nearby business posing as an investigator and tried to obtain video footage of what happened in the bar.
Yolanda Rivera’s attorneys pointed to Baker’s lengthy record of disciplinary complaints, seizing on another incident, in which he was accused of accosting a woman at a bar in December 2022 and flashing a gun at her after she refused to date him. The woman stopped cooperating with investigators, and the case was closed.
“Carlos Baker’s actions towards women were not a secret,” Rivera family attorney Maura White said. “The city of Chicago was on notice of his danger to women as early as 2022.”
