New details shared on what happened days before state police recruit's academy death
Prosecutors provided more details on Thursday about what led up to the death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia, a state police recruit who died after a boxing exercise in 2024.
Only one person volunteered to fight the most experienced and skilled "fighter" in the 90th Recruit Training Troop on "Boxing Day" at the state police academy in New Braintree.
Delgado-Garcia, 25, of Worcester, stepped up to box the trainee with the most boxing experience only after another trainee voiced concerns about being matched with an experienced boxer, according to court filings in Worcester Superior Court.
Some members of the academy's Defensive Tactics Unit pressured the second trainee to stay paired with the unnamed trainee with boxing experience, telling him he was "the only one who can take a punch from (the experienced) trainee."
But after the second trainee continued to voice concerns about his opponent's boxing abilities and refused to back down from his request to change partners, academy staff asked the rest of the trainees for a volunteer.
The decision to allow Delgado-Garcia to fight the trainee with more boxing experience — which led to multiple blunt force injuries to the head and massive brain bleeding that caused his death — in part led to an independent investigator to bring criminal charges against three instructors and one supervisor at the academy.
Prosecutors also say that a sparring exercise that was "unauthorized, unapproved and deficiently supervised" the day before "Boxing Day" left Delgado-Garcia with concussion-like symptoms. He also complained to other recruits about memory loss, headaches and "missing the day" after the sparring exercises on Sept. 11 — two days before he died.
Lt. Jennifer Penton, Trooper Edwin Rodriguez, Trooper David Montanez and Trooper Casey LaMonte were all charged with involuntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily injury to a person participating in a training involving physical exercise.
Penton faces an additional charge of perjury. Authorities have accused her of lying to a grand jury.
Penton, Rodriguez and Montanez pleaded not guilty on Thursday. LaMonte is scheduled for an arraignment on April 14. All three were released on personal recognizance.
All four have been placed on leave by the Massachusetts State Police.
David Meier, a private defense attorney who previously worked at the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, was appointed by Attorney General Andrea Campbell to lead an independent investigation into Delgado-Garcia's death.
His appointment came after the Worcester District Attorney's Office recused itself because Delgado-Garcia worked there for two years as a victim witness advocate.
Meier's investigation led to the criminal charges for the four state police members.
"These individuals not only engaged in ongoing daily interactions with Enrique Delgado Garcia, but had direct management and direct control over the physical training exercises themselves," Meier wrote in court filings.
The four state police members were present and responsible for boxing-related sparring exercises, for the selection of the trainee match-ups on "Boxing Day," and responsible for the safety and well-being of the trainees during the boxing matches on Sept. 12, 2024, when Delgado-Garcia was knocked unconscious.
Penton's attorney, Brad Bailey, addressed reporters outside the courthouse after the hearing on Thursday.
"There's no question that the untimely death of Trooper Enrique Delgado-Garcia … was nothing short of a tragedy," Bailey said, adding that they continue to offer condolences and prayers to his family.
"The tragedy is not a crime," Bailey said. "Filing these criminal charges will not bring Trooper Delgado-Garcia back." He described the prosecution's legal theory of the underlying facts as "convoluted."
Brian Williams, the president of the Massachusetts State Police Union, agreed that Delgado-Garcia's death amounted to a tragedy, in remarks after the arraignment.
He said the boxing training session involving Delgado-Garcia was captured on video and that it provides an "objective and indisputable record of events."
He said the exercise took place under the supervision of a medical professional and a certified boxing referee. He called the academy's defensive tactics staff "among the best in the nation" and said, "all protocols were strictly followed."
In the prosecution's statement of the case, however, Meier wrote that academy staff invited the president of the State Police Boxing Team to referee on "Boxing Day" — but that he no longer was licensed as a boxing referee.
The special prosecutor repeatedly described the conduct by the four academy staff members as "wanton and reckless" for both "affirmative acts" that created a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm would result, and for failure to take actions to eliminate or reduce that risk.
Asked during a February press conference about whether there would be consequences for Delgado-Garcia's sparring partner, Campbell said, "Not in this investigation."
An autopsy released to the family of Delgado-Garcia in August 2025 found that he died due to blunt force injuries to the head.
The autopsy states he died of complications from "intracranial hemorrhages due to blunt impact injuries of the head in the setting of physical training exercises," according to his family's lawyer, Mike Wilcox.
His death was ruled accidental by the state's medical examiner's office, Wilcox said, with a note that Delgado-Garcia was "injured during physical training exercises."
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