Body cam video shows Chicago cop took cover for 90 seconds after fatally shooting his partner Krystal Rivera

Body camera footage released Friday shows that Chicago Police Officer Carlos Baker sat in a stairwell for more than 90 seconds after shooting his partner Krystal Rivera last summer, leaving her bleeding from a gunshot he initially said had been fired by someone else.

Videos show the officers chasing a man into an apartment building. Baker then booted open an apartment door and encountered a second man, who appears to aim a gun at the officers on videos released by the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability.

Baker turns, appears to trip over himself and fires the gunshot that hit Rivera, then runs up a stairwell and calls for help, the videos show. When Baker comes back down the stairs, he first steps over Rivera’s lifeless body before bringing her down the stairwell.

The video footage doesn’t show Baker rendering aid to Rivera.

Baker later told a COPA investigator that he was willing to risk his life to help his wounded partner. He said he remembered thinking, “I will die for her, that I had to get to her.”

“Because she’s so strong and I told her that I would never, never let anything happen to her,” he said.

Baker said he thought he was in a “fatal funnel” when he saw a man aiming a rifle at him after breaching the apartment door, using a tactical term for a dangerous confined space, according to a recording obtained by the Illinois Answers Project and Chicago Sun-Times.

“I thought I was about to die in that doorway because action, as we’re taught, action beats reaction. I dove out of the way and that was when I heard a pop.”

Rivera’s death was the first fatal officer-on-officer shooting in Chicago in nearly 40 years, and the first since the widespread adoption of body-worn cameras in the 2010s.

COPA released only two videos related to Rivera’s death and didn’t say how many it withheld, a significant departure from past practice and apparently at odds with city policy requiring the release of videos and reports when an officer shoots someone.

In the shooting death of Adam Toledo, the agency released 23 body-worn camera video files. In the shooting death of Dexter Reed, the agency released 17 of those files, including video of officers who arrived after the shooting. In the most recent video release by COPA, from January, the agency released nine videos, including seven the agency tagged as occurring after the shooting.

Shannon Hayes, deputy chief of investigations at COPA, said the difference in outcome didn’t reflect a different process, and she understood why it appears different. But the agency didn’t withhold any videos it would have normally released, Hayes said.

“We did not withhold anything,” she said. “I determined what relates to the use of force.”

Hayes said that the agency looks “at all the video and determines what relates to the incident we’re investigating. That’s the language from the video release policy. The materials related to the incident. What relates to the incident depends on what the incident is,” she said.

“Consistency in process doesn't necessarily mean consistency in outcome,” she said. “The thought process is the same every time.”

Rivera’s family says partner ‘left her to die’

Rivera’s mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit last year alleging Baker had been struggling to accept her daughter's decision to end their romantic relationship when he fatally shot her during the foot chase.

The lawsuit, filed in Cook County court against Baker and the Chicago Police Department, states that the breakup happened after Rivera learned that Baker was living with another woman while dating Rivera. Rivera threatened to tell his live-in girlfriend about their relationship.

The lawsuit alleges Baker showed up uninvited at Rivera’s home the day before Baker fatally shot Rivera.

After the shooting, Baker then “ran in the opposite direction and left her to die”, according to the lawsuit, which states he failed to provide medical aid, call for an ambulance or acknowledge he was the shooter.

John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police union, defended Baker's conduct after the body camera video was released Friday.

"He reacted better in that situation than I want to say 90% of officers would, because it was that chaotic and tragic of a … scene," said Catanzara. "Many officers would have ran down the … stairs possibly right away ... and subjecting themselves to then get shot.

“And then you'd have two shot officers on the staircase if the offenders were still in the apartment — which he had no idea that they had bailed at that point."

Authorities arrested and charged one man, accused of pointing a gun toward Baker once he was in the apartment, within a couple days of the shooting. A second man, the one who Baker and Rivera had chased into the apartment, was arrested and charged about two weeks later.

Their cases are pending, court records show.

About a week after the shooting, a judge barred the release of any material related to the two criminal cases or the administrative case opened against Baker after the shooting. The order prevented COPA from releasing videos within 60 days of the shooting, which is required by city ordinance.

The publisher of the Illinois Answers Project, the Chicago Sun-Times and other media organizations asked the judge to undo her secrecy order last summer. She declined, but an appeals court overturned her order in March as “an abuse of discretion.” COPA released videos and some files related to the shooting Friday.

A checkered past

Baker had racked up more than a dozen misconduct complaints by the time authorities say he inadvertently shot and killed Rivera as they confronted the two armed men inside an apartment filled with guns and drugs.

Baker accrued five of those complaints as a probationary officer, when he could have been summarily fired because he had few union protections.

During that time, Baker was accused of flashing a gun at a woman he’d met online while she was on a date with another man at a North Side bar. The woman later refused to cooperate with investigators, and Baker faced no discipline, records show.

Baker’s record of complaints is unusual among Chicago police officers, especially for one so early in his career. Only 5% of Chicago police had six or more misconduct complaints from 2018 through 2023, according to data from the Invisible Institute.

Baker applied to the Gresham District’s tactical team in March 2024, but Patrol Chief Jon Hein quashed the move, citing Baker’s lengthy disciplinary history, according to an internal memo.

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

Between the two applications, Baker ran into more trouble.

He failed to activate his lights or sirens as he chased a stolen car in June 2024 that ultimately went flying into the air and wrecked six other vehicles, records show. Baker then accidentally fired his Taser while chasing the driver over a fence. He was docked two days of pay over the crash.

In between applications, he was also found to have been insubordinate and to have called his sergeant an expletive, records show. Baker had worked on the tactical team for a few months before shooting Rivera.

Each time Baker applied to the team, he had the backing of his district commander, Michael Tate, who worked under Supt. Larry Snelling in areas of the department where Snelling held top command positions earlier in his career.

Tate has declined to comment since the shooting, and the police department hasn’t answered questions about the shooting or Baker’s conduct. 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.