Chicago police brass had rejected troubled cop's move to elite unit before he fatally shot partner

The cop who fatally shot his tactical team partner during a chase on the South Side last year initially had his appointment to that unit blocked by a top Chicago Police Department official because of his disciplinary history, but that decision was reversed less than a year later even though he’d racked up more complaints, records obtained by Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Sun-Times show.

Officer Carlos Baker applied to the Gresham District's tactical team in March 2024 with the blessing of his commander. But Jon Hein, the department’s chief of patrol, quashed the move, citing Baker's lengthy disciplinary history, according to an internal memo.

After submitting a second application in January 2025, though, Baker won the appointment to the tactical team, a coveted and competitive position that’s often used as a stepping stone for promotions.

Each time he applied, Baker had the backing of his district commander, Michael Tate, who worked under Supt. Larry Snelling in areas of the department where Snelling had held top command positions earlier in his career. Tate was promoted late last year to street deputy, a high-ranking position responsible for responding to and commanding the scene at major events citywide.

During the summer between Baker’s two applications to the tactical team, he refused an order from one of Tate’s sergeants, saying “motherf-----s get some stripes and think they can do something,” according to a disciplinary complaint that was “sustained.”

Since Baker’s fatal shooting last year of Officer Krystal Rivera, investigators found that he tried to interfere in a separate investigation in which he’s accused of battering an off-duty female police officer outside a bar. Baker hasn’t been charged in the bar incident.

Last June 5, a few months after being moved to the tactical team, Baker shot Rivera in the back as they chased a gunman into a Chatham apartment building.

Officials from the police department and City Hall’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability have called the shooting unintentional.

Rivera’s family filed a lawsuit last month against the city and Baker, saying Rivera had broken up with him shortly before the shooting after finding out that Baker had a live-in girlfriend and threatened to disclose their relationship to her.

Department members knew the relationship was over and that Rivera wanted to be reassigned away from Baker because she thought he was a threat to her safety, according to the lawsuit, which points out Baker’s disciplinary record and notes that the department could have fired him over the complaints he got as a probationary officer.

Baker hasn’t been disciplined in connection with Rivera’s death. A COPA investigation into the shooting remains open, according to a spokesperson for the agency.

The police department declined to answer questions about why the initial decision to block Baker's appointment to the tactical team was reversed.

Hein could not be reached for comment. Reached by phone, Tate hung up on a reporter.

Antonio Romanucci, the attorney for Rivera’s family, said the newly obtained records show “Carlos Baker never should have been a police officer.”

A failed attempt

Hein had flagged Baker’s background when he rejected the officer’s application to join the Gresham District tactical team. In a memo to a deputy chief on May 1, 2024, Hein cited Baker’s past "discipline."

Scheduling records show Baker already had worked in the tactical team for a couple of days before the denial and that he later worked in the unit for another two weeks before being moved back to patrol. At the time of his first stint on the team, Baker had less than two and a half years on the job, making him one of least-experienced officers in the role.

A report created as part of Baker’s first application shows he had one sustained complaint in the five prior years for neglect of duty and had been given two short suspensions and a reprimand for lesser misconduct. The disciplinary records included in Baker's applications were limited and didn't include allegations that hadn’t been sustained or were still under investigation.

Baker’s second application notes two sustained complaints — the new one for a civil rights violation — and two additional lesser complaints. One of the lesser complaints accused Baker of having failed to follow the department’s car chase policy, over which he got a two-day suspension.

In the time between Baker’s two applications, a sergeant accused him of insubordination after Baker refused to submit a report explaining why he was 40 minutes late for work and not dressed for duty, according to records. Baker was reported to have responded, “I’m not giving you anything” and to have sworn at him.

Five months later, Tate submitted Baker’s name for the tactical team a second time, and this time Hein approved the move.

Neither application noted that Baker had been accused of flashing a gun at a woman who’d spurned his advances inside a bar in December 2022 while he was still a probationary officer. At that point, he could have been summarily fired because he lacked most union protections. The woman eventually declined to cooperate with investigators, and COPA dropped its investigation.

New complaints

Baker and Rivera later worked as partners for six months in 2023, according to her family’s lawsuit. She ultimately asked her supervisor for a new partner, citing Baker’s behavior and “prior reckless conduct” as a police officer, the lawsuit says.

Rivera had cooperated in an investigation into the theft of a Glock pistol from the tactical team’s office in December 2023. The Glock had been turned in at a buyback event at St. Sabina Church but ended up being used in three shootings after it went missing, records show. It was found on a 16-year-old boy when he was arrested in November 2024.

The details of what happened the night Baker shot Rivera remain unclear. A Cook County judge presiding over the cases of the two men charged with gun and drug crimes after the deadly pursuit has blocked the release of police body-camera footage.

Officials have said the officers chased one gunman into an apartment in Chatham, encountered another and that Baker fired a single shot, hitting Rivera in the back.

John Catanzara, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, said in a video posted to the lodge’s YouTube page that Baker’s feet got “tangled up” trying to reverse course after he’d gone through a door and encountered someone pointing a rifle toward him. As Baker tripped, he accidentally fired his gun without realizing it had gone off, according to Catanzara.

According to the Rivera family’s lawsuit, Baker then “ran in the opposite direction and left her to die,” failing to provide medical aid, call for an ambulance or even acknowledge that he was the shooter.

After Rivera was killed, Baker was accused of attacking a female officer outside a Wicker Park bar in August, records show. He later was stripped of his policing powers after being accused of posing as an investigator to obtain surveillance video of the off-duty incident from a nearby business. Internal investigators sustained that complaint against Baker and issued a three-day suspension.

In the immediate aftermath of the incident outside the bar, Baker repeatedly called Tate, the police official who led the Gresham District at the time and who had signed off on Baker’s requests to join its tactical team.

Baker told officers investigating the attack that he, not the female officer, was the victim and said he was harassed by two women outside the bar, records show.

Casey Toner and Peter Nickeas report for the Illinois Answers Project. Tom Schuba is a Sun-Times reporter.