State Police recruit dies after being injured while boxing at academy

BOSTON - A Massachusetts State Police recruit who was critically injured during a training exercise at the academy in New Braintree has died, according to I-Team sources. The trainee, 25-year-old Enrique Delgado Garcia, had been on life support at a Worcester hospital.

Delgado Garcia was sworn in as a trooper on Friday by the secretary of public safety. He will receive full state police honors and his body will be escorted to the medical examiner's office.

On Thursday, the WBZ I-Team reported that the trainee was injured during a boxing exercise, which is a regular part of state police training. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

The death is under investigation by the Worcester County District Attorney's office.

According to the state police website, the recruits in training attend a 25-week, modified stress, live-in academy with 90 different courses of instruction. The most recent class started in April and is called the 90th RTT.

Boxing program at state police academy

The academy re-introduced the boxing program in the late 90s. Todd McGhee worked as the defensive tactics coordinator at the academy for a decade. He said the goal is to teach recruits how to handle violent and unpredictable situations towards the end of their training, when they've built up the skills and confidence.

"And oftentimes you would find a recruit that never had a physical confrontation," McGhee said. "So, one of the goals was to be able to put a trainee in a controlled environment with conditions and have them go through an experience where it would test their internal fortitude."

McGhee said it's devastating, given the safeguards he put in place to prevent injuries. Trainees are paired based on size and ability, and those with boxing experience cannot participate.

"Sixteen-ounce gloves, head gear, some type of groin protection," McGhee said. "Someone monitoring making sure that the combatants are engaged in something that is controlled."

McGhee said there has been thousands of successful boxing contests.

"Injuries of this nature not only are they tragic, but they're very, very rare," McGhee said.

McGhee said changes could soon be coming to the academy. "It's a tragedy and it's important that we recognize that this is a very, very unfortunate situation," McGhee said. "Do I see changes coming? Yes. I don't think this is a change based on this isolation of a training exercise, I think it's a culmination of what the state police has been going through."