By Luis Fieldman
masslive.com
BOSTON — An autopsy released to the family of Enrique Delgado-García, the state police recruit who died nearly a year ago after a boxing match as part of academy training, found that he died due to blunt force injuries to the head.
Delgado-García, 25, died on Sept. 13, 2024, a day after being hospitalized due to the training exercise at the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree. An independent investigation by David Meier, an attorney appointed by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, into the death of Delgado-Garcia remains ongoing and has spanned 11 months.
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-García was “injured during physical training exercises.”
The Massachusetts State Police provided MassLive with the following statement on Wednesday:
“The Massachusetts State Police remembers and honors Trooper Enrique Delgado García as one of our fallen. His kindness, compassion, and dedication to the Department’s mission continues to inspire all who knew him from his time at the Academy and beyond. As we approach the first anniversary and continue our review of training practices, the Department shares the Delgado-García Family’s desire for a thorough accounting of the facts and circumstances of his tragic death. The State Police has fully cooperated with the ongoing review of this tragedy, and we await the findings of that independent inquiry.”
Lawyer questions boxing match
Wilcox said he is representing the family in the event of any further legal action and as a liaison between the family and Meier, the independent investigator.
Over the course of his own investigation, Wilcox said he’s learned from various sources more about Delgado-García’s death.
Not included in the autopsy: the injuries were a result of a boxing match, and Delgado-García was knocked down at least twice, according to Wilcox.
“The entire exercise — boxing — was unequivocally unnecessary,” Wilcox said. “[Massachusetts State Police] is one of the few departments in the country that still has a recruit boxing program.”
Other findings in the report stated that Delgado-García — who was sworn in as a trooper in his final hours at the hospital — had a contributing heart issue of “perimyocarditis with progression to inflammatory cardiomyopathy of uncertain etiology.”
“The underlying heart condition did not cause his death. The cause of death was blunt force ... repeated blows to his head that caused hemorrhaging,” under his brain, according to Wilcox.
He noted that Delgado-García wore headgear during the boxing match and was in the “prime of his life” with only weeks to graduate from the academy.
“I think it’s fair to ask, ‘Was it truly a training exercise or a fight for someone’s entertainment?’” Wilcox asked. “It happened in front of many state troopers charged with making sure it didn’t happen and people need to answer for that.”
Recent statements from family
Delgado-García died nearly three weeks before graduating from the 90th Recruit Training Troop. Last month, MassLive interviewed Delgado-García’s family, who spoke about seeing Delgado-García at the hospital after the boxing incident.
A hospital surgeon reviewing images of Delgado-García’s brain said the images looked like someone involved in a car crash going 100 mph, according to family members.
When they told the doctor he was injured in a training exercise, the family remembers him saying, “How? What kind of training was that?”
“In reality, I never felt scared when he was in the academy; I never feared for him there,” Sandra García, the recruit’s mother, said. “I always feared for when he would leave there. But, for me, he was protected there … I never thought anything would happen to him there.”
State officials have not shared many details about what happened on Sept. 12, 2024, at the police academy. State police said at the time that Delgado-García became unresponsive during a defense tactics training exercise before being brought to a Worcester hospital.
Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early’s Office had jurisdiction to investigate his death, but Early recused himself because Delgado-García previously worked as a victim-witness advocate in that office.
Early said at the time that the incident happened in the boxing ring and that a video existed, which has not become publicly available.
Earlier this month, a state police spokesperson provided MassLive with a statement in response to questions about the investigation.
“At the direction of Colonel Geoffrey Noble and his predecessor, Colonel John Mawn, the Massachusetts State Police has fully cooperated with the independent review of this tragedy. We share the Delgado-García Family’s desire for a thorough accounting of the facts and circumstances, and we await the findings of that inquiry,” the spokesman wrote in a written statement.
The cost of the independent investigation has surpassed $430,000 as of the end of May, according to invoice statements obtained by MassLive. The Attorney General’s Office provided heavily redacted documents through a public records request for invoices from Meier’s investigation, for which he is under contract until June 2026.
State police announced several reforms to the academy training program in May, including the suspension of the boxing program and the appointment of Captain David Pinkham, a 20-year agency veteran, as the new head of the academy.
The law enforcement agency also announced the formation of a commission called the International Association of Chiefs of Police to conduct an independent assessment of the academy as a whole.
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