Three Massachusetts State Police Troopers Plead Not Guilty in Recruit's Boxing Death

Enrique Delgado-Garcia was 25 years old and just months into his police training when he collapsed in a boxing ring at the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree. He died at a hospital on September 13, 2024, one day after becoming unresponsive during what prosecutors describe as an unauthorized sparring session that left him with a concussion and a massive brain bleed. Thursday, three of his instructors stood before Judge J. Gavin Reardon Jr. in Worcester Superior Court and said "not guilty."

Lt. Jennifer Penton, the defensive tactics unit's supervisor, along with Troopers Edwin Rodriguez and David Montanez, were arraigned on charges of involuntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily injury to a person participating in a training program. All three were released on personal recognizance with the condition that they have no contact with potential witnesses, and a pretrial conference was set for June 16. The courtroom was packed: the three defendants stood together with legal counsel and members of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, while Delgado-Garcia's relatives sat on the opposite side of the room and watched in silence. A handful of supporters held signs bearing Delgado-Garcia's likeness outside the courthouse.

Prosecutors allege the boxing match was "unapproved and unsafe," conducted without adequate supervision, and that the instructors permitted Delgado-Garcia to continue sparring despite visible signs of concussion or distress. Penton faces a charge beyond manslaughter: perjury, stemming from what investigators described as repeated false answers she gave during grand jury testimony. Her arraignment on that count is scheduled for later this month. A fourth instructor, Trooper Casey LaMonte, is due to be arraigned on April 14.

All four were suspended with pay in February, when a special statewide grand jury convened at the direction of Attorney General Andrea Campbell and led by independent investigator David Meier returned the indictments. Their continued employment is subject to a formal review by the state's Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission on July 1.

The charges occupy unusual legal terrain. More than 30 recruits have died at law enforcement academies nationally since 2015, from violent or grueling exercises, heat, exertion and other causes, yet criminal prosecutions of the trainers involved have been exceedingly rare. Meier has argued that the conduct at issue here crossed well beyond ordinary training error into criminal negligence, a threshold that courts have historically set high when the defendants are law enforcement officers acting in a training capacity.

The case has already forced structural changes inside the Massachusetts State Police. Colonel Geoffrey Noble, who took command weeks after Delgado-Garcia's death, has suspended the academy boxing program and told lawmakers he does not expect it to return; jiu-jitsu may take its place. He ordered the recruit class split into two smaller cohorts to allow closer supervision of each trainee, and outside consultants monitored training sessions last summer. The department reported no serious injuries and no injury-related resignations from the two most recent academy classes under the revised structure.

Whether those changes constitute genuine institutional reform or managed liability exposure is a question the criminal case will sharpen. As the proceedings move toward evidentiary hearings and a potential trial, the Delgado-Garcia family's presence in that Worcester courtroom Thursday signaled that for them, the institutional accounting is only beginning.