Days after an incident at a bar in Wicker Park, the Chicago Police Department on Friday stripped the police powers of the officer who fatally shot Officer Krystal Rivera earlier this year.
A department spokesperson confirmed that Officer Carlos Baker, who is on medical leave from the department, was stripped of his police powers Friday.
Last weekend, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability opened an investigation after Baker allegedly battered an off-duty female CPD officer at a bar in Wicker Park.
A CPD spokesperson would not say what incident prompted Baker to be stripped of his police powers, though CBS Chicago reported Thursday that Baker attempted to interfere with that investigation by contacting nearby businesses about surveillance footage of the incident.
Rivera’s family has since retained attorneys to conduct a civil investigation of the shooting.
“While the Rivera family and their legal team wholly believe removing Carlos Baker’s police powers is the appropriate decision, we called for this from the earliest days after he fatally shot his police partner, Krystal Rivera,” Antonio Romanucci, an attorney for the slain officer’s family, said in a statement Friday. “However, as we stated clearly several weeks ago, the concerns about Carlos Baker go back further than the night he killed Krystal.”
The alleged incident in Wicker Park came about two months after Baker and Rivera, both part of the district tactical team, were trying to make a traffic stop on a suspect and chased him into an apartment at 8210 S. Drexel Ave., authorities previously said. Inside the apartment, they met a man who allegedly pointed a rifle at them.
Baker fired a single shot, striking Rivera in the back. She was pronounced dead a short time later at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Rivera was the first CPD officer to die in a friendly fire incident in nearly 40 years.
Two men were charged with various felonies in connection with the June 5 shooting, but neither faces a murder charge. Both cases remain pending.