Four staffers at the Massachusetts State Police Academy are facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2024 death of a recruit following a boxing exercise.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell and David Meier, the outside attorney who led a nearly 17-month-long investigation into the death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia, announced the charges Monday.
Meier said the four people, the supervisor of the academy’s defensive tactics unit and three instructors, “committed a series of wanton and reckless acts and omissions that resulted in Enrique Delgado-Garcia’s death.”
A Worcester County grand jury indicted Sgt. Jennifer Penton and Troopers Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez and Casey LaMonte on charges of involuntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily injury to a person participating in a training program. Penton also faces perjury charges.
They will not be arrested, Meier said, but will be issued summonses to appear at an arraignment hearing “to be scheduled in the near future.”
Delgado-Garcia, 25, was a Worcester resident who formerly worked as a victim-witness advocate for the Worcester County district attorney’s office.
Meier said Delgado-Garcia suffered “concussion-like symptoms as the result of unauthorized, unapproved and unsupervised boxing-related sparring exercises that occurred during academy training activities on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024.” The next day, he experienced “multiple blunt-force injuries to the head and massive brain bleeding” in a competitive boxing match with another trainee, which the academy staff failed to stop, Meier said.
Delgado-Garcia died Sept. 13, 2024. He was sworn in as a trooper before his death.
Campbell said Monday that State Police superintendent Col. Geoffrey Noble, who was sworn into the role in October 2024, has been looking at reforms to put in place and that she supports those efforts.
“In no way is this investigation and the charges it has yielded a condemnation of all law enforcement,” Campbell said.
Gov. Maura Healey, who appointed Noble to the job, called Delgado-Garcia’s death “a terrible tragedy.”
“I’ve said from the start that there needed to be a thorough investigation to fully understand how this happened and to make sure something like this never happens again,” Healey said in a statement. “Colonel Noble and his team also didn’t wait for the results of this investigation to make changes to the Academy to ensure the safety and success of all recruits, and I know they will continue this important work. My heart is with Enrique’s family and his brothers and sisters in the Massachusetts State Police, today and every day.”
The State Police announced a series of training reforms in May 2025, including the new academy leadership and a curriculum review. The department said at that time that the boxing program remained suspended.
Noble said the department fully cooperated with Meier’s investigation.
“In the period since the tragedy, the Department has taken several steps to strengthen training at the Academy, including commissioning an independent review by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), and expanding support for recruits,” Noble said in a statement. “As the IACP review nears completion, our work continues with focus and resolve, guided by Enrique’s memory, and committed to the highest standards of professionalism, leadership, and training. We will remain engaged with the legal process and will reserve further comment at this time to protect its integrity.”
Meier acknowledged that the investigation was long and conducted out of public view.
“That silence has been purposeful. It is a direct reflection of the nature of the investigation and of my ethical and legal obligations,” he said. “At the same time, I can assure the public that the investigative process has been searching, it has been exhaustive, and it has been without outside influence.”
The grand jury, Meier said, heard sworn testimony from more than 150 witnesses, mostly state police officers.
Meier said members of the academy’s command staff had the power to address many of the circumstances around Delgado-Garcia’s death, but there was not enough evidence to support criminal charges against them. He said there was no evidence that Delgado-Garcia “was targeted in any way” or that anyone involved “acted with deliberation, premeditation or malice.”
