Chicago police officer fatally shot in Chatham neighborhood was struck in back, according to medical examiner

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a day ago

Earlier in what would be her final shift, Chicago police Officer Krystal Rivera took two guns off the street, authorities said, only to come face-to-face with a rifle later that night.
Rivera, 36, a four-year veteran with a young daughter who lived in the Irving Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side, was killed after the Gresham (6th) District tactical team she was part of tried to conduct an investigatory stop on a person believed to have a weapon about 9:50 p.m. Thursday in the 8200 block of South Drexel Avenue.
The first Chicago police officer to be killed in the line of duty this year, Rivera was mourned by city officials and her fellow officers, who praised her work ethic and asked Chicagoans to keep her family in their prayers.
'Our officer was young, vibrant and a hard worker,' police Superintendent Larry Snelling said, speaking from the University of Chicago Medical Center early Friday. 'She was a working police officer trying to keep the streets safe.'
Flanked by department brass, Mayor Brandon Johnson and other city and state officials, Snelling gave some details about the shooting, but did not offer a full picture of exactly how the shooting unfolded. In response to a reporter's question about the gunfire, Snelling said investigators were waiting on a warrant to search the apartment where the shooting happened.
'Here's the deal: We won't know that until the search warrant is served and we are able to go through that apartment and collect more evidence. The evidence that we collect usually … gives a story of what occurred in there,' Snelling said. 'So until we have all of that information we can't rely on just one source at this time.'
An autopsy found that Rivera was shot in the back.
A CPD spokesperson declined to comment on the autopsy results — or further elaborate on the circumstances of the shooting and whether it could even have been friendly fire — saying the investigation is ongoing, and referring to Snelling's comments from Thursday night. It was not clear Friday afternoon whether the suspects fired a weapon.
This is what Snelling did relay about the shooting, though, in a news conference that took place hours after the event. The officers first tried to stop someone thought to be armed when the individual ran into an apartment, and the officers followed, he said.
There, Snelling said, the team encountered a second person armed with a rifle. One of the officers fired a gun 'at some point' during the confrontation, he said, and another officer was shot, later succumbing to her injuries at University of Chicago Medical Center.
'When the officers followed into that location they were then confronted by a second person who was in that apartment who was armed with a rifle pointed at the officers,' Snelling said. 'At some point the officer discharged the weapon. Our officer was struck. She was then transported by assisting units to the hospital here where she later succumbed to her wounds.'
The two people in the apartment ran away and were arrested shortly afterward, Snelling said, though he said officials had 'several' people in custody in connection with the shooting. The department did not specify exactly how many people were in custody as of Friday afternoon.
A third officer hurt his wrist and was listed in fair condition, according to a police statement.
Investigators recovered three weapons at the scene and were still reviewing body-worn camera footage, Snelling said, and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability was investigating the shooting.
After the shooting, police officers took their wounded colleague to the hospital in a squad car, which crashed and caught fire on the way there because of what Snelling described as a malfunction with the vehicle. Another squad car finished the trip, he said, and the officers in the first car were 'doing fine.'
'The way that she worked, it was evident that she did love her job,' Snelling said. 'She wanted to make Chicago a better place.'
Rivera's mother, reached by phone, declined to comment.
In a statement posted to social media, the mayor asked Chicagoans to keep Rivera's family in their prayers, especially her young daughter who will 'who will miss her mom for the rest of her life.'
Rivera had an 'unmatched work ethic,' Johnson said.
'Officer Rivera was a hero who served on the force for four years. She had a long career in front of her. A bright future was stolen from her family and from her loved ones,' he said in the statement.
The last Chicago officer to suffer fatal injuries on the job was Enrique Martinez, 26. Martinez, who was also assigned to the same Gresham District as Rivera, was fatally shot in November in the 8200 block of South Ingleside Avenue— just one street east of where Rivera was killed Thursday.
Outside the hospital early Friday, squad cars lined Cottage Grove Avenue for blocks in every direction. A peer support officer walked people, some of them in tears, in and out of the ambulance bay as others in uniform exchanged hugs in the street.
In Chatham, the crime scene spanned multiple blocks as law enforcement agencies fanned out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
Cook County sheriff's deputies walked up and down Maryland Avenue near East 83rd Street with rifles and canine units while tactical teams searched nearby alleys with flashlights.
As squad cars lined the streets for several blocks in every direction, a police helicopter circled the area, beaming a searchlight. Residents walked their dogs and filmed the scene on their phones, protesting when officers asked them to back up to Cottage Grove so they could expand the crime scene.
Officers appeared to zero in on an alley on the west side of Ingleside. A resident leaned out the window of a courtyard building across the street and asked if they needed to get in. Detectives begin combing the front yard with flashlights.
Just before noon Friday, a two-man crew arrived at the Gresham District station to affix purple and black bunting on the building's facade, in keeping with CPD tradition after an officer is killed on the job.
This is a developing story.