By Kate Linderman
The Charlotte Observer
CHICAGO — A 23-year-old off-duty Chicago police officer was enjoying an evening with his girlfriend and friends when he was shot and killed in 2019, Illinois prosecutors said.
Now, 30-year-old Menelik Jackson has been sentenced to 90 years in prison after he was convicted of killing the officer, Cook County prosecutors said in an April 22 news release. He was convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated battery and aggravated discharge with a firearm in October, prosecutors said.
John Rivera had been with the Chicago police department for two years at the time of his death, prosecutors said.
He was in a parked vehicle in the River North neighborhood when Jackson and two others approached the vehicle thinking it belonged to someone they had gotten into a fight with earlier that night, according to officials.
Jackson shot at the back seat of the car, striking Rivera and another 23-year-old in the chest and neck, officials said.
“In an act of cowardice, Mr. Jackson went to get a gun to settle this petty dispute, which resulted in him murdering the first Hispanic man that he came in contact with,” then- Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson told CBS in 2019.
Jackson is the third person to be sentenced in Rivera’s death, officials said.
Jovan Battle , 38, was convicted of murder, among other charges, in March 2021 and accused of leading Jackson to the off-duty officer’s vehicle, according to prosecutors. He was sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Jaquan Washington pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and was sentenced to 13 years in prison in December 2024 , according to the news release.
“Officer John Rivera was a dedicated public servant who sought to make our city a safer place, and his senseless death left a hole in our hearts that can never be filled,” State Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said in a statement.
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