Today’s must-read
Friday, Jun 27, 2025 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Peter Nickeas, Casey Toner and Tom Schuba at the Chicago Sun-Times…
A young Chicago cop had racked up more than a dozen misconduct complaints by the time authorities say he inadvertently shot and killed his partner, Krystal Rivera, when they confronted two armed men inside an apartment filled with guns and drugs.
Since joining the Chicago Police Department in December 2021, Officer Carlos A. Baker has faced three suspensions and two reprimands, records show, one stemming from a complaint that he failed to arrest a home invader on his first shift working the street.
It was among five complaints he accrued as a probationary officer, when the department could have summarily fired him because he had few union protections.
During his probationary period, Baker also 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. Only 5% of Chicago police had six or more misconduct complaints from 2018 through 2023, according to data collected by the Invisible Institute. […]
In April, the Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the team oversaw a botched police gun buyback at St. Sabina Church in December 2023. One weapon that had been turned in, a .45-caliber Glock 21 handgun, was later stolen from a room filled with cops at the tactical team office while the guns were being inventoried. The Glock was then used in a series of shootings. Police found it a year later on a 16-year-old boy. […]
Records released by the police show Rivera had been a key witness to the theft of the Glock. The records make clear that she did not do anything wrong and was “not accused of any misconduct.” They show Rivera diligently searched for the gun in her colleagues’ book bags after she learned it was missing.
The police department reopened the internal investigation of the gun’s theft after the Sun-Times and the Illinois Answers Project asked about the incident.
Go read the rest.
- Chicago - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 12:39 pm:
Maybe CPD should raise the standards again for hiring police. Because lower the standards is just not working out.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 12:45 pm:
===Because lower the standards is just not working out===
Taxpayers paid out a whole lot of money under the old system, so your reasoning is faulty.
Maybe instead just weed out the cops with lots of complaints during probationary periods.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 12:49 pm:
…in other words, this was a management issue.
- Ukrainian Village Usurper - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 1:11 pm:
The added context of Krystal being involved in investigating the disappearing gun debacle from the buyback program adds a lot of layers to this story.
I don’t want to declaratively say her death was some sort of conspiracy, but given this officer’s disciplinary record I think it’s worth asking if there are other pieces that fit together here.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 1:32 pm:
The entirety of the Chicago Police Department is a “management issue” and has been for decades. If journalists ever found themselves inclined to tell the public the truth about who runs big city police departments that might help somewhat, but I have no expectation that will ever happen. There was a reason the Burge story wasn’t broken by the Tribune or S-T. Actually lots of reasons over the course of decades.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 1:33 pm:
=== If journalists ever found themselves inclined===
You mean like today’s story?
- Paul Powell - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 3:09 pm:
Great insight Larry
Only 5% of officers had 6 or more misconduct allegations
What percentage of the allegations do you think are actually true?
Pretty broad brush you are smearing the entirety of Chicago’s finest with
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 3:16 pm:
That article is fine but it of course stays well within the lines local papers and mainstream journalists have always stayed within. Reading that you might think COPA has actual power. Reading 99% of crime/political journalism, you’d think that mayors are in charge of big city police departments.
What I’m saying more broadly is, you cannot be a sentient adult who lives in a modern American city and really believe that the mayor, whoever it is, or civilians are in charge of the police department. It’s insulting to the people being asked to pay for a news product to be fed nonsense like that.
- ArchPundit - Friday, Jun 27, 25 @ 3:52 pm:
====Pretty broad brush you are smearing the entirety of Chicago’s finest with
And yet, no one sees nothing. All the good cops never seem to notice the bad cops. Seems odd for people employed as investigators.