4 State Police members relieved of duty as they face charges in recruit’s death

Local News

A State Police lieutenant and three troopers face manslaughter charges in connection to the death of recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia in 2024.

The Massachusetts State Police relieved four of its members of duty who will face criminal charges related to the death of a recruit in 2024. 

Lt. Jennifer Penton and Troopers Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez, and Casey LaMonte were relieved of duty, according to MSP officials. Attorney General Andrea Campbell and an independent investigator announced Monday that all four face criminal charges in connection to the death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia. 

Penton, Rodriguez, Montanez, and LaMonte were members of the MSP academy’s defensive tactics unit. Delgado-Garcia died after sustaining injuries in “unauthorized, unapproved, and unsupervised boxing-related sparring exercises,” the independent investigator announced this week. He found that the four MSP officers “committed a series of wanton and reckless acts and omissions” that led to the recruit’s death. 

Penton, Rodriguez, Montanez, and LaMonte were each charged with causing serious bodily injury to participants in a physical exercise training program and involuntary manslaughter. Penton, who was a supervisor at the academy, was also charged with perjury. She allegedly lied under oath when asked when she first learned about Delgado-Garcia’s concussion-like symptoms. 

In accordance with the MSP disciplinary process, the four will be subject to duty status hearings. After their hearings, each officer could be retained on full duty, placed on restricted duty, suspended with pay, or suspended without pay. MSP officials have not provided any further updates about these hearings. 

Penton graduated from the State Police academy in 2016 and was last assigned to the Revere Barracks. Rodriguez and Montanez both graduated from the academy in 2021 and were last assigned to work at the academy. LaMonte graduated in 2020 and was last assigned to the MSP’s certification unit, which conducts background investigations on recruits and others. 

None of the four have ever been subject to disciplinary actions before this investigation, according to MSP officials. 

Since Delgado-Garcia died on Sept. 13, 2024, MSP leaders and Campbell have faced continuous calls for more information about what led to his death. The independent investigator Campbell appointed, attorney David Meier, announced his findings at a press conference Monday. 

Delgado-Garcia suffered concussion-like symptoms on Sept. 11 after participating in boxing-related exercises, Meier said. The four people facing charges allegedly interacted with Delgado-Garcia multiple times on that day but failed to prevent him from participating in another sparring match the next day. 

On Sept. 12, Delgado-Garcia received multiple blunt-force head injuries and a “massive” brain bleed because academy staff allegedly failed to intervene in a competitive boxing match between him and another recruit, Meier said. Delgado-Garcia was knocked unconscious. He died on Sept. 13. 

State Police Col. Geoffrey Noble, who was appointed to lead the MSP about a month after Delgado-Garcia’s death, said in a statement that Meier’s findings represented a “difficult and somber day” for the agency. 

Noble has overseen reforms at the academy, appointing new leadership, initiating an hour-by-hour review of the academy’s curriculum, and bifurcating new classes of recruits into smaller cohorts. Officials immediately suspended boxing as part of the defensive tactics curriculum after Delgado-Garcia’s death. 

The International Association of Chiefs of Police is conducting an independent review of all MSP training practices. This review is nearing completion, Noble said this week.