Three years after his dramatic release from county jail, former Dallas police officer Bryan Riser feels vindicated again.
Riser has been embroiled in a battle for his good name and freedom for years after being accused and charged with double murder.
“He is very, very happy now, much happier, he feels vindicated,” said Riser’s attorney, Dallas criminal defense attorney Toby Shook.
Police arrested Riser in 2021 and charged him with two counts of capital crimes after he allegedly hired hitmen to murder Albert Douglas, 61, and Liza Saenz, 31, who were killed several weeks apart in 2017.
In August 2019, a witness came forward implicating Riser in the cases, prompting the DPD to investigate one of the cases itself.
Riser spent five weeks in jail in 2021 before a controversial hearing that questioned the DPD’s evidence and the actions of a detective.
The hearing ended with the prosecutor and the judge agreeing that there was insufficient evidence to proceed. The charges were dropped and Riser was released.
And now, just last month, in a separate hearing before an administrative law judge to rule on Riser’s appeal of his firing. Another victory.
“At the end of the hearing, the judge ruled in favor of Bryan Riser on the grounds for dismissing the two felony arrests,” Shook said. “In other words, there was no evidence to support it. And when that happened, the city wanted to settle rather than continue the hearing.”
The offer came as a surprise to Shook, but she was confident that the judge would ultimately rule in her favor and that Riser would return to his position on the police force, as he had requested.
The city of Dallas offered to settle the case on one condition.
“He was reimbursed for his last three years and reinstated. Part of the agreement was that he would resign,” Shook said.
Riser kept the agreement and resigned from the police force, Shook confirmed.
When asked how much money Riser received in back pay, Shook said he did not immediately know the amount.
A spokesman for the city of Dallas said in a statement: “The City of Dallas does not comment on personnel matters.”
This week, Riser posted a photo on his public Facebook page of himself wearing a T-shirt that read “Checkmate.”
Riser’s defense attorney Toby Shook says money can’t make up for what happened.
“The negative coverage has ruined his reputation. If you Google his name, you’ll see that he was arrested for capital crimes,” he said. “The damage is done. That’s why he’s still pursuing a civil suit.”
Shook is not representing Riser in the civil suit in federal court.
That’s not all.
DPD confirms that the 2017 murder cases are “still ongoing.”
“Yes, the case is still open. They will say Bryan Riser is a suspect. I can say with certainty: He will never be arrested because there is no evidence,” Shook said. “Bryan Riser had nothing to do with any of these murders, he did not in any way order the murder of these people. He is completely innocent in both cases.”
Chief Eddie Garcia, who had just arrived in Dallas, fired Riser, even though his predecessor, Chief Renee Hall, had stated that there was not enough evidence at the time to place Riser on leave.
“He’s a great police chief, everyone likes him, and I think in this case he was just given the wrong information,” Shook said. “He relied on the detectives to give him the right information.”
Shook says this headline-grabbing case should serve as a lesson for us.
“I think it just shows how important it is when you arrest someone, especially a police officer, for a high-profile crime like this, not to rush into it, to at least double-check the accuracy of the affidavit and to be completely honest about the evidence,” he said.
Shook’s downtown Dallas office is crammed with newspaper clippings from some of the city’s most high-profile trials, including Riser’s acquittal in 2021.
“I’ve been doing this for years and I think I’ve seen it all, and then I get a case like this,” Shook said. “It was a very satisfying win.”
Dallas
