Man convicted of fatally shooting off-duty CPD Officer John Rivera in River North: 'An execution'

A Cook County jury on Tuesday convicted a south suburban man of killing an off-duty Chicago police officer in River North — in what prosecutors and the defense called a tragic case of mistaken identity.

Menelik Jackson, 29, took the stand Monday and admitted to firing a handgun seconds after walking up to Officer John Rivera’s car early in the morning of March 23, 2019.

Rivera, 23, and several friends had just returned to the parked car in the 700 block of North Clark Street after a meal at a nearby pizzeria.

But Jackson said he believed they were members of a group who had gotten into a fight with his friend an hour earlier at a McDonald’s restaurant a block south.

Jackson claimed he heard someone in the car mention a gun and then saw Rivera holding a “black object.”

“I saw a threat and proceeded to protect myself,” Jackson told jurors.

Rivera did not have a gun, and no weapon was recovered from the car, according to prosecutors, who called the shooting an “ambush and an execution.”

“They were sitting ducks, unarmed, sitting in their car, doing nothing,” Assistant State’s Attorney Sarah Karr said in her closing statement. “The law does not allow someone to go up to a car and open fire because they are angry.”

Defense attorney Wendy Steiner said Jackson had been drinking heavily for hours before the shooting, which she called “a split-second reaction” to a perceived threat.

“What ended up happening was a very tragic culmination of a chain of events that no one could have anticipated,” she said.

It took less than an hour for the jury to find Jackson guilty of first-degree murder, as well as aggravated battery with a firearm, for wounding a passenger in the car and aggravated discharge of a firearm.

Jackson is the third man convicted in the shooting.

Last fall, Jaquan Washington, 28, pleaded guilty to murder. Washington had been involved in the fight at the McDonald's after he and Jackson had gone to a concert, where they met and partied with two women from Wisconsin.

After the fight, Jackson went to his pickup truck and got his gun, which he then displayed while all four were hanging out at the women’s hotel room, prosecutors said.

The women testified that Jackson was agitated and made racist statements about Hispanic people, and they eventually told Jackson and Washington to leave.

Outside the hotel, the two friends encountered Jovan Battle, a man who had struggled with mental health and homelessness. He said he saw the fight at the McDonald's and wanted to help Jackson and Washington.

Battle pointed out Rivera’s car, and the three crossed the street and headed toward it together.

Battle was found guilty of murder at a trial in 2019 during which he represented himself. He was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Washington is still awaiting sentencing.

 Jackson returned to his pickup after the shooting, and his license plate was captured by surveillance cameras that led police to arrest him hours later on the South Side while he was walking his dog.

A gun that matched shell casings at the scene was later recovered, as well as a green jacket Jackson was seen wearing on surveillance footage that tested positive for his DNA and for the presence of gunshot residue, prosecutors said.

Rivera had passed the police exam at 18 and then waited until he could join the department at 21 to finally become an officer.

He had not been an officer for two years when he was killed.

Then-Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson called Rivera “the kind of officer that we want in Chicago, a hard worker who loved going out on patrol and solving problems.”