A Dallas police officer was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of mastermind.
Dallas police said officer Bryan Riser, who joined the department in August 2008, was charged in connection with the murders of Albert Douglas, 61, and Liza Saenz, 31, in 2017.
The city’s police chief, Edgardo Garcia, declined to describe the relationship between the officer and the victims, but said the killings were related to Officer Riser’s ‘non-working behavior’, not his police work.
Nevertheless, Chief Garcia said the Dallas Police Department is going to fire Riser and investigate his behavior over the force and the arrests he has made.
“We hire individuals from the human race, and if we find such people, it’s the action we take afterwards that we have to judge,” Chief Garcia said. “We will hold ourselves accountable to the highest level.”
It was not immediately clear if Officer Riser had a lawyer. The Dallas Police Association, which represents city officials, declined to comment.
The body of me. Saenz was found on March 10, 2017 in the Trinity River in Dallas. Police fired several times. In September 2017, three men – Kevin Kidd (28); Emmanuel Kilpatrick, 31, and Jermon Simmons, 35, were arrested and charged with the murder of Ms. Saenz, police said.
On August 12, 2019, a prosecutor told Dallas police that one of the men – who was only identified as a “witness” in the court documents – with information about Officer Riser’s involvement in the murder of Saenz, the authorities, to come wanted. said.
Two days later, during an interview at Dallas police headquarters, witness officer Riser was involved in the murders of both Saenz and Mr. Douglas, whose family reported him missing in February 2017. His body was not found, although the witness told police that Mr. Douglas was shot dead and then dumped into the Trinity River.
The witness said he and Officer Riser had known each other for years and made contact again in 2013 when Officer Riser contacted him and asked him if he was ‘doing the things they still did when they were young’, such as to commit burglaries, the witness told police.
The witness said Officer Riser initially promised to give him information about drug houses if the witness and his crew robbed the houses and then kept the drugs and gave any stolen money or guns to Officer Riser, police said.
However, the plan never materialized, the witness said, because Officer Riser then made a plan to kill Mr. Douglas was abducted and killed for $ 3,500, police said.
After discussing the plan in a donut shop and in a park, the witness said that Officer Riser drove him to a place where he had Mr. Douglas identified his target, police said.
A few days later, the witness said that he and a co-worker, Mr. Douglas handcuffed, put in a car and drove to a spot near the Trinity River, police said. Mr. Douglas was shot dead and his body was dumped into the river, the witness told police.
About two weeks later, Officer Riser contacted the witness again and said he would pay him $ 6,000 to kidnap and kill Saenz, police said. Officer Riser told the witness that she was an ‘informant’, police said.
Me. Saenz was shot dead and her body was dumped into the river, police said. But the witness never raised the $ 6,000 because he and his accomplices were arrested in unrelated murders, police said.
Officer Riser was also arrested on May 13, 2017 and charged with assault on domestic violence, an offense. It was not immediately clear what happened to the case and how it, if it was all, related to the murders. At the time, Officer Riser was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into internal affairs. Chief Garcia said he could not discuss the details of the case.
The principal admitted that the department allowed officer Riser to remain on patrol after the witness involved him in the 2019 murder. But he said ‘terminology is important’. The principal said a person does not become a “murder suspect” until there is enough information to find the possible cause that he committed a murder.
“I think the community needs to know that this police department wants to be as thorough as possible because we definitely do not want anyone slipping through the cracks wearing no uniform,” Chief Garcia said. ‘And so he’s a person of importance until he becomes a suspect. And that’s what the diligent work of our detectives and the FBI has been trying to do. ”