A Dallas police officer was arrested Thursday on two charges of mastermind, more than a year and a half after a man told investigators he kidnapped and killed two people in 2017, authorities said.
Bryan Riser, a 13-year veteran of the force, was arrested Thursday morning and taken to Dallas County Jail for processing, according to a statement from the police department. A lawyer for Riser 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 had abducted and killed them on Riser’s orders. said police chief Eddie Garcia during a news conference. He said investigators did not know the motives for the murder, but said it was not related to Riser’s police work.
Garcia did not explain why Riser was arrested nearly 20 months after the witness appeared, and police did not want to answer subsequent questions about the timing. Riser joined the department in 2008, and Garcia admitted to patrolling Dallas while being investigated for the murder.
Dallas Police Department
The chief stressed that his homicide department and the FBI are still investigating the killings and said the department is reviewing Riser’s arrests.
Saenz’s body was pulled from the Trinity River in southwest Dallas on March 10, 2017 with multiple bullet wounds, the principal said. Douglas was reported missing that year and his body was not found.
Three people were arrested earlier and charged with the murder of Saenz, according to a statement for the arrest of Riser. It does not identify any of them by name.
One of them reportedly told police he and Riser were involved in their youth. They recently devised a plan to rob homes for drug addicts, but according to the affidavit, they did not follow through.
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 were dumped into the river, according to the court report.
The statement reads that Riser told the assassin that Saenz was an ‘informant’. The document is not being expanded, and police declined to answer questions about whether Saenz had an affiliation with the department.
The charges of murder are not the first alleged crimes of the officer. In May 2017, Riser is on trial on a charge of domestic violence for allegedly assaulting and injuring a former girlfriend. It was not immediately clear how the case was resolved. Police said Riser “received discipline for an incident.”
Riser has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Garcia said “we are going to speed up our process” in the direction of his shooting.
“We will not allow anyone to slander this badge,” the principal said.
A sheriff’s spokesman said Riser was not booked into jail early Thursday afternoon.
A Dallas County District Attorney’s spokeswoman said her office has no information on the case.