A police officer in Dallas kept his job for more than 1 year as he became the focal point of a murder investigation

• In 2019, the Dallas Police Department received a tip that one of its officers ordered the killing of two people.
• Meanwhile, officer Bryan Riser continued to work while the department investigated the case.
• On Thursday, Riser was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder.

For more than a year, Officer Bryan Riser continued his duties in the Dallas Police Department while the department investigated whether he ordered the killing of two people.

The DPD recommended not placing Riser on administrative leave so he wouldn't be tipped off, according to the city's former police chief, Reneé Hall.

"Taking that action could have compromised the investigation," Hall wrote in a statement. "If Riser had known he was a person-of-interest, DPD might not have been able to bring justice to the families."

In 2019, a witness came forward with information, and Riser was identified as a person of interest in the killings of two people.

On Thursday - nearly 20 months after the witness came forward - Riser, a 13-year veteran with the police department, was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in the killings of Lisa Saenz, 31, and Albert Douglas, 61. The two separate attacks took place in 2017.

Kevin Kidd, Emmanuel Kilpatrick, and Jermon Simmons were arrested in 2017 on capital murder charges in Saenz's death. According to the arrest warrant affidavit, one of the three men came forward in August 2019 and said Riser was involved in the killings of Saenz and Douglas.

During a press conference, Eddie García, the current police chief, said the two murders were connected to Riser's "off-duty" life, and investigators are still trying to determine the motives.

Riser was being held Friday on a $5 million bond.

He has been placed on administrative leave from the department pending the outcome of an Internal Affairs administrative investigation, as Insider previously reported.

Riser's arrest sparked a back-and-forth between the Dallas Police Department and FBI

Since Riser was arrested and charged, there has been a back-and-forth between Hall and the FBI's Dallas office.

Hall released a statement on Twitter, saying the "DPD Special Investigations Unit, in collaboration with the FBI, recommended not placing Riser on administrative leave."

FBI Special Agent Matthew DeSarno, in charge of the agency's Dallas field office, said in a news conference last week that the FBI wasn't responsible for the decision, WFAA-TV reported.

In a follow-up statement posted to Twitter, Hall said her statement had been mischaracterized by media and that the "recommendation came from the lead organization, DPD, not the FBI."

"It's disappointing that some want to start a blame game when the focus should be on a successful outcome," Hall said in the statement.

García urged an end to the back-and-forth and said it's the police chief's decision to put an officer on administrative leave, he told The Dallas Morning News.

"I don't know what exactly occurred in 2019," García told the outlet. "But we [police chiefs] are responsible for decisions that are made. No one else."