A Dallas police officer was arrested on Thursday on two counts of capital murder, more than a year and a half after a man told investigators that he kidnapped and killed two people on police instructions in 2017, officials said.
Bryan Riser, a 13-year-old veteran in the force, was arrested Thursday morning and taken to Dallas County Jail for processing, according to a police department statement. A lawyer for Riser could not be immediately identified.
Riser was arrested for the unrelated murders of Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61, after a man came forward in August 2019 and told police that he kidnapped and killed them under Riser’s direction, Chief of Police Eddie said. Garcia during a press conference. He said investigators did not know the motives for the murders, but said they were unrelated to Riser’s police work.
Garcia did not explain why Riser was arrested almost 20 months after the witness appeared, and the police refused to answer subsequent questions about the timing. Riser joined the department in 2008, and Garcia acknowledged that he was patrolling Dallas while being investigated for the murders.
Dallas Police Department
The chief stressed that his homicide division and the FBI are still investigating the murders and said the department was reviewing Riser’s arrests.
Saenz’s body was removed from the Trinity River in southwest Dallas on March 10, 2017, with several gunshot wounds, the chief said. Douglas was reported missing that year and his body was not found.
Three people were previously arrested and charged with capital murder in the murder of Saenz, according to a statement from Riser’s prison. It does not identify any of them by name.
One of them reportedly told the police that he and Riser were involved in robberies when they were young. More recently, they devised a plan to steal drug hiding places, but did not follow it, according to the testimony.
Instead, the man told investigators that Riser offered to pay him a total of $ 9,500 to kidnap and kill Douglas and, later, Saenz. Both were shot and their bodies dumped in the river, according to court records.
The statement states that Riser told the hired killer that Saenz was an “informant”. The document gives no further details and the police refused to answer questions about whether Saenz had any connection with the department.
The murder charges are not the policeman’s first alleged crimes. In May 2017, Riser faced a domestic violence charge for allegedly assaulting and injuring an ex-girlfriend. It was not immediately clear how this case was resolved. Police said Riser “received summary discipline for an incident”.
Riser was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation. Garcia said “we are going to speed up our process” for his resignation.
“We will not allow anyone to stain this emblem,” said the chief.
Riser had not been fined in prison until early Thursday afternoon, said a spokesman for the sheriff.
A spokeswoman for the Dallas County Prosecutor’s Office said her office had no information about the case.