SAN ANTONIO – The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has changed its process for accepting outside resources at scenes after footage captured by KSAT showed a convicted sex offender standing with deputies in a city park as authorities searched for a missing mother and her son this spring.
Xavier Lopez, 31, confirmed to KSAT Investigates that he was at Tom Slick Park on March 19 as BCSO investigators searched for Savannah Kriger and her three-year-old son Kaiden.
The bodies of Kriger and her son were found that morning in a ditch area of the far West Side park shortly after an AMBER Alert was issued.
Investigators now contend Savannah Kriger shot her son and then shot herself.
Footage gathered by a KSAT photojournalist that morning showed Lopez getting out of a large sport utility vehicle, unloading items from the back of it and then standing a few feet away as loved ones wept in each other’s arms.
Lopez was indicted by a Bexar County grand jury in 2020 on two counts of sexual assault, after committing sex crimes on an unconscious man, court records show.
Lopez pleaded no contest to the charges in late 2021 and was sentenced to eight years probation in early January 2022, according to court records.
He was ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Sex Offender Registry.
Lopez was rearrested in March 2023, days after a motion to revoke probation was filed in his case.
Lopez failed to comply with the requirements of his community supervision and failed to follow instructions for a sex offender treatment program, court records show.
A judge last June continued Lopez on probation until January 2030, allowing Lopez to stay out of prison.
A spokesman for the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office confirmed that prosecutors opposed Lopez getting deferred adjudication in his sexual assault case and had instead offered a cap of eight years in prison.
“The bench is not constrained by what the DA’s office is opposed to. Our office’s offer reflected the complaining witness’ desire that the defendant go to prison,” DA spokesman Pete Gallego said via email.
Why was Lopez at the park?
The SUV Lopez was riding in on March 19 had decals for Statewide Emergency Response Team.
Footage gathered by another San Antonio television station showed the SUV Lopez was in received an escort onto park property by a BCSO all-terrain vehicle.
Lopez and another man, Xavier Gonzales, filed paperwork with the county in late November to do business as Statewide Emergency Response Team, listing the group as a nonprofit.
It provides water, sports drinks and even bathroom facilities for first responders at various scenes, including fires, standoffs and searches.
The two men abandoned the DBA in late December, according to county records, and Gonzales then filed a separate DBA that same day as the sole owner of Statewide Emergency Response Team, county records show.
Social media posts show the group remained in operation at events throughout the spring.
The social media posts included pictures taken at a major accident, a shooting, and at Oyster Bake, one of Fiesta’s signature events.
The listed business address for Statewide Emergency Response Team, a West Side lot on Bowdoin Street, is filled with equipment with the Statewide Emergency Response Team logo on it.
Lopez said he’s allowed in city parks; a city ordinance states otherwise
A neighbor of the property walked up to a KSAT crew as they gathered footage last month and said he could get Lopez on the phone.
Lopez spoke to KSAT for several minutes and claimed he stopped his affiliation with Statewide Emergency Response Team about a month before the late April phone call took place.
He told KSAT he believes the agencies that he assisted at scenes were aware of his criminal background and that his conviction does not prohibit him from going to city parks because his victim was not a child.
Even though the state’s sex offender registry does not ban sex offenders from city parks, a San Antonio city ordinance in place since 2014 does.
Chapter 22, Article XI of the San Antonio municipal code prohibits anyone on the sex offender registry from entering a city park or loitering within 300 feet of one.
A person found to be in violation of the ordinance can be cited with a Class C misdemeanor, the code states.
Lopez has not faced any criminal charges for entering Tom Slick Park during the Kriger search.
Gonzales, the other man listed as owner in the DBA paperwork for Statewide Emergency Response Team, told KSAT via email late last month that he wanted to sit down and discuss the situation.
He then did not respond to multiple follow-up emails from KSAT attempting to set a time and location for an interview, before eventually writing this month that he could not disclose member information without their consent if a camera was present.
Lopez, the same day he and Gonzales abandoned the DBA for Statewide Emergency Response Team, individually filed paperwork with the county to do business as Fire Scene Rehab.
That name, however, was already being used by a subsidiary of another San Antonio-area first responder rehabilitation group.
Lopez said he filed paperwork under the name Fire Scene Rehab because its director had not properly done so.
The director, Bobby Briggs, told KSAT in a phone interview last month he was perplexed as to why Lopez would file a DBA under the name.
Briggs confirmed Lopez previously worked for the group but that Briggs let him go after Lopez tried to “push himself on” four minor volunteers within the organization.
Briggs said none of the then-minors chose to pursue possible criminal charges against Lopez.
KSAT could find no record that Lopez was ever criminally charged in connection to the incidents.
Lopez, in his phone call with KSAT, denied taking part in any illegal activity involving minors while working for Briggs’ first responder rehab group.
Asked about Lopez being at the Kriger search, a BCSO spokeswoman said Statewide Emergency Response Team arrived at the scene unannounced and offered resources, but its members were restricted to the outside perimeter only.
“BCSO employees were notified of changes regarding the accepting and/or requesting of resources while on-scene. Moving forward all requests for assistance will be routed through BCSO Dispatch and handled by the Bexar County Office of Emergency Management only,” BCSO spokeswoman Sandra Altamirano Pickell said via email.
By all indications Lopez was at the park to provide rehabilitation services for first responders. KSAT could find no other connection between Lopez and the Kriger incident.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.