A Dallas police officer was arrested on Thursday on the grounds of two capital murders, more than a year and a half after a man told investigators that he kidnapped and murdered two people at the behest of the officer in 2017, authorities said.
Bryan Riser, a 13-year veteran of the police force, was arrested Thursday morning and taken to Dallas County Jail for processing, according to a police statement. A Riser attorney could not be immediately identified.
Riser was arrested in the unrelated murders of Liza Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61, after a man came forward in August 2019 and told police he kidnapped and murdered them on behalf of Riser, Police Chief Eddie Garcia said. during a press conference. He said investigators do 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 nearly 20 months after the witness came forward, and police declined to answer subsequent questions about the timing. Riser joined the department in 2008, and Garcia acknowledged that he had patrolled Dallas while under investigation for the murders.
Dallas Police Department
The chief stressed that his homicide department and the FBI were still investigating the murders and said the department was reviewing Riser’s arrests.
Saenz’s body was pulled 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 has not been found.
Three people were previously arrested and charged with capital murder in the murder of Saenz, according to an affidavit for Riser’s arrest. It doesn’t identify any of them by name.
One of them is said to have told police that he and Riser were involved in burglaries when they were young. They recently came up with a plan to rob drug storage homes, but they failed to implement it, according to the affidavit.
Instead, the man told investigators that Riser offered to pay him a total of $ 9,500 to kidnap and murder Douglas and later Saenz. Both were shot and their bodies dumped in the river, according to the court.
The affidavit states that Riser said the hit man Saenz was an “informant.” The document does not go forward, and police declined to answer questions about whether Saenz had any connection with the department.
The murder charges are not the officer’s first alleged crimes. In May 2017, Riser was faced with domestic violence charges for alleged assault and injury to an ex-girlfriend. It was not immediately clear how that case was resolved. Police said Riser was “given a summary sentence for an incident.”
Riser has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Garcia said “we’re going to speed up our process” to his fires.
“We will not allow anyone to tamper with this badge,” said the chief.
Riser had not been booked into jail early Thursday afternoon, a sheriff spokesman said.
A spokeswoman for the Dallas County district attorney said her office had no information on the case.