Case dismissed against retired San Antonio Police detective
Charges of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon have been dropped against a 32-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department. (SBG San Antonio)
San Antonio — Charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon have been dropped against a 32-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department.
Retired detective John Schiller was charged after he allegedly tried to keep a suspect at the scene, whom his ex-wife and daughters said had stolen a cell phone with credit cards and IDs, until SAPD arrived.
Schiller's case was dropped two weeks ago after the district attorney's office could not get the alleged victim, Christian Torres, to produce himself to court.
Torres, who is charged with Continuous Abuse of a Child, has been a fugitive of the law since July.
Schiller's attorney, Joey Contreras, also claims that the retired detective was treated as if he was still a police officer. Schiller's case according to Contreras was sent to the Public Integrity Unit at the DA's Office which deals with officer cases. They also allege that SAPD Chief William McManus also ordered the old Repeat Offenders Program to find the retired detective and arrest him when a warrant was issued. The unit's job was to pick up those who repeatedly offended.
We asked the DA's Office for a statement on this claim and this is what they sent us: "The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office made multiple attempts to contact Mr. Torres to prosecute the case against Mr. Schiller. While we had been in touch with Mr. Torres we were unable to secure his appearance for trial on Sep. 22, 2022. The case against Mr. Schiller was dismissed due to a missing witness (Mr. Torres). At present, Mr. Torres is a fugitive for a warrant on continuous sexual abuse of a child."
We also requested a statement from SAPD's Public Information Office and this is what they said: "Chief McManus is not aware of any order or direction given to the ROP unit regarding retired Detective John Schiller. The old ROP unit, however, would have been the unit that was tasked with looking for and apprehending suspects with felony warrants."
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