A Chicago police officer was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow officer while pursuing a suspect on the city’s south side.
Krystal Rivera, a 36-year-old single mother who had spent four years on the force, was rushed to the hospital in a squad car after taking a gunshot wound to the back. The vehicle she was traveling in bizarrely crashed and caught on fire, and she had to be transferred into another vehicle to complete the journey.
The incident occurred at around 9:50 p.m. Thursday while Rivera and the Gresham (6th) District tactical team tried to conduct an investigatory stop on a person believed to have a weapon. Her death was later ruled a homicide.
Rivera’s daughter, Bella Medina, 10, told The Chicago Sun-Times that her mother hugged her tighter than usual when she left for work on Thursday morning.
“When she said bye, it’s like she had a feeling. She gave me the biggest hug, biggest kiss, and she said, ‘If anything happens, I’m always right here,’ in my heart.” Rivera’s sister described Medina as her life.
Bella’s 11th birthday party was scheduled to take place this weekend.
“As released in yesterday’s preliminary statement, an officer discharged his weapon during the encounter with an armed offender,” a CPD statement read on Friday. “Further investigation revealed the only weapon discharged during this incident was the weapon of the officer, whose gunfire unintentionally struck Officer Rivera.”
At a press briefing early on Friday morning, Superintendent Larry Snelling told reporters that Rivera and another officer had been following the suspect on foot and had chased him into a building.
Inside, the officers encountered the suspect armed with a rifle. During the confrontation, another Chicago police officer fired shots, hitting Rivera. Several suspects are now in custody, according to Snelling.
Snelling described Rivera as “young, vibrant, and a hard worker,” highlighting that she had confiscated and processed two guns that day prior to the incident.
“She did great work, and if you talk to anyone on her team, they will tell you how great of a worker she was,” he said. “This is the risk that our officers take every single day.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also spoke at the briefing, saying, “The entire city of Chicago is grieving and mourning together over this tragic loss.”
“This young woman served honorably and courageously,” he said. “I’m calling on the entire city of Chicago to keep this officer’s family in your prayers, along with our entire police department. Her young, energetic, and bold approach towards keeping us safe is the memory that we will honor, and I will assure that our police department has everything that it needs in order to render justice.”
Her 10-year-old daughter survives Rivera.
Pastor Donovan Price told ABC Chicago that he prayed with Rivera’s fellow officers during roll call after her death.
“It reminds me of a typical family when they found out something terrible happened. They’re crying, emotional. With these officers, a lot of them are young. You can look in their eyes that it could have almost been them.”
Friends told the network that Rivera dreamed of being a police officer since she was a teenager,
