Officer Rivera's Final Moments Captured on Bodycam

Chicago’s police oversight agency released body-camera video on April 17 showing Officer Krystal Rivera being fatally shot by her partner during a June 5, 2025 chase in Chatham. (chicagocopa.org) The footage shows Rivera, 36, and Officer Carlos Baker pursuing a man into an apartment building near 8200 South Drexel Avenue around 9:50 p.m., then moving into a narrow hallway outside an apartment door. Baker kicks in the door, another man appears with a long gun in surveillance video, and Baker fires one shot as Rivera stands behind him. (abc7chicago.com) Video from Baker’s camera shows him running up a stairwell and calling in “shots fired” after the gunshot. WTTW reported he waited about two minutes before going back to Rivera as she lay wounded. (news.wttw.com) The release came 10 months after the shooting because a June 13, 2025 court order in *People v. Adrian Rucker* had blocked COPA from publishing the videos and case files. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability said that order was vacated on March 27, 2026. (chicagocopa.org) An Illinois Appellate Court panel said Cook County Judge Barbara Dawkins used the wrong law when she denied a motion by Chicago media outlets to lift the secrecy order. The opinion said the ruling did not automatically force release of every record, but it cleared the way for the city to decide disclosure under public-records rules. (yahoo.com) The case has drawn scrutiny because Rivera was not killed by a suspect but by another officer, and because COPA’s investigation is still open. Baker has been relieved of his police powers, but he has not been charged with a crime. (news.wttw.com) (yahoo.com) Rivera’s family sued Baker and the Chicago Police Department in December 2025, alleging he shot her after she ended an off-and-on romantic relationship with him and failed to quickly get her medical help. NBC Chicago reported the lawsuit says Baker turned and shot Rivera in the back after kicking in the door. (nbcchicago.com) Baker’s lawyer, Tim Grace, disputed the family’s account after the videos were released. Grace said Baker’s gun “unintentionally discharged,” that he acted within Chicago Police Department policy, and that other armed men in the building caused the danger that night. (news.wttw.com) Two men were charged in the events that led to the chase, Adrian Rucker and Jaylin Arnold. On April 23, 2026, Arnold pleaded guilty to gun and drug charges and received an eight-year sentence, while Rucker’s case remains pending. (fox32chicago.com) (yahoo.com) The new videos do not settle the civil case or COPA’s investigation, but they now anchor both with a public record that had been sealed for months. For Rivera’s family, the central facts of her last minutes are no longer confined to court filings and police statements. (chicagocopa.org) (nbcchicago.com)