Chicago releases body camera video of officer fatally shooting partner

Body-camera video released Friday put a stark timeline on one of Chicago’s most fraught police shootings: Officer Krystal Rivera was killed by her partner during a chaotic pursuit near 8200 South Drexel Avenue, and the footage now forces a harder look at how officers are trained to identify one another and respond in the first seconds after a shooting.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released the materials on April 17, 2026, after a court order blocking disclosure in the criminal case against Adrian Rucker was vacated on March 27, 2026. The video and related records concern the fatal shooting on June 5, 2025, in Chatham, where Rivera, 36, a four-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, was shot by Officer Carlos Baker, her partner.

According to the video reviewed by news outlets, Baker and Rivera were pursuing a suspect into an apartment building when they encountered an armed man and a gunshot was fired. NBC News reported that Baker then ran upstairs, yelled that shots had been fired and returned to Rivera after 1 minute and 44 seconds. WBEZ reported that he took more than 90 seconds before checking on Rivera as she lay bleeding. Those details sharpen the central accountability question in the case: whether officers in a fast-moving pursuit had the training, communication and discipline to distinguish threat from partner in a split second.

Chicago police initially said only that an officer had discharged a weapon and fatally struck Rivera. COPA has investigated the case as an unintentional discharge. Baker has not been charged with a crime. His attorney, Timothy Grace, has said the shooting was accidental and that Baker was facing a lethal threat from a rifle when the gun discharged.

Rivera’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit and has challenged the official account, saying Baker did not immediately render aid and that their daughter was behind him during the encounter. Their attorneys, Antonio Romanucci and his firm Romanucci & Blandin, also sought release of all video and Baker’s disciplinary records. Rivera’s mother, Yolanda Rivera, has said the two officers had been in a romantic relationship before the shooting, adding another layer of personal context to a case already testing public trust.

The Chicago Police Department said Friday it was thinking of Rivera’s family and continues to cooperate with the active COPA investigation. Baker was relieved of law-enforcement powers in August 2025 after a separate incident unrelated to the June shooting. For Chicago, the video is no longer just evidence in a single case; it is a measure of whether police training, oversight and reform have changed the way officers act when seconds matter most.