Man Handed 8-Year Sentence For Events Leading To Officer Krystal Rivera's Deadly Shooting

CHICAGO—A Cook County judge sentenced a man who triggered the events that led to the deadly shooting of Chicago Police Officer Krystal Rivera by her partner in June 2025.

Jaylin Arnold, 28, was handed an 8-year sentence by Judge Barbara Dawkins at the Bridgeview Courthouse in exchange for pleading guilty to a felony gun charge. His sentence will run concurrently with a 3-year sentence for a drug conviction.

The slain officer was the mother of a young daughter. Rivera’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Chicago and her partner, Carlos Baker, an officer with a long disciplinary record. Rivera's family contends that Baker never should have been allowed to be a Chicago police officer and that her death was caused by Baker’s “willful and wanton conduct.”

Rivera, 36, was a four-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department when she was shot and killed by her partner, Officer Carlos Baker, on June 5, 2025. Arnold fled an investigatory stop when he ran into a nearby apartment building on the 8200 block of Drexel Avenue on the South Side.

Body-cam footage of the fatal shooting was released last week by an appellate court judge that overrode a Cook County judge’s order to keep the footage sealed. The footage shows Rivera and Baker being buzzed into the building. Baker charges up two flights of stairs, with Rivera close behind.

According to the footage, he kicked in the door when a man emerged from a bedroom with an AR-style gun. Baker fires at the man, hitting Rivera in the back instead. The bullet entered an opening in her bulletproof vest. Rivera fell into the hallway while Baker ran up a flight of stairs and yelled into his radio. The body-cam video does not show him rendering aid.

The Chicago Police Department later determined that only one shot was fired, which turned

Rivera's tearful mother, Yolanda, while agreeing accountability was appropriate, criticized the harshness of Arnold’s sentence, given the Chicago Police Department’s role, the Chicago Tribune reported. The family alleges in its wrongful lawsuit that Baker failed to render aid to her daughter for a full two minutes.

“Holding someone accountable for the charges … is appropriate,” she said. “However, assigning them as essential symbols while ignoring the actions or inactions of those in positions of authority does not affect the balance of justice our system strives for.”

Adrian Rucker, 26, the man accused of pointing a rifle at Baker, has also been charged for his involvement in the officer’s fatal shooting.

Baker has not been charged with wrongdoing. He was stripped of his police powers after he was said to have attacked an off-duty officer outside a Wicker Park bar a few months after Rivera’s death.