A Massachusetts State Police trainee whom officials have said was seriously injured during an exercise at the academy on Thursday has died.
The family of 25-year-old Enrique Delgado-Garcia, whose dream was to be a state trooper, wants answers about what happened. Loved ones tell NBC10 Boston and Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra they were told he was hurt during a boxing training exercise.
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State police said earlier Friday that the recruit, a member of the 90th Recruit Training Troop at the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree, "became unresponsive" during a defensive tactics training exercise on Thursday. The academy's on-site medical team, which includes staff from UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, immediately responded and rendered aid.
The medical team determined that urgent medical care was required, state police said, and the trainee was brought by ambulance to a local hospital.
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NBC10 Boston and Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra reached out to state police for more information. A spokesperson confirmed Friday night that Delgado-Garcia had died, sharing a statement from Col. John E. Mawn Jr., but giving no further details of what occurred.
"The Massachusetts State Police grieves the tragic loss of Trainee Enrique Delgado-Garcia, and we offer our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones," Mawn said in his statement. "They have the full measure of our support and care, and they remain full members of our State Police Family."
Delgado-Garcia's family is demanding answers.
"They killed my child," his mother, Sandra Garcia, told Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra. "Then they declared that he supposedly had a brain damage, the doctor says that my son looks like he had been in an accident in a car going 100 miles per hour, because of how hard that boy hit my son."
"As a family, we are asking for an explanation," said his stepfather, José Perez. "Something happened so quickly and we are truly distraught. The family is devastated."
Garcia said her son was "hit so hard that it destroyed his brain and broke all of my son's teeth," adding that his neck was fractured.
"They killed my cousin! And they run away like cowards," said Omel Canario García.
He said he does not believe what he's been told about how his cousin's fatal injuries.
"Teeth missing? Brain injury? That didn't come from boxing, especially a round of two minutes," Canario García said.
State police said earlier Friday that more details would be provided as they become available.
Delgado-Garcia's father said earlier that he'd been told that he was injured in a fight at the academy Thursday, but wasn't told more information, including what kind of fight it was or with whom. The trainee had been at the state police academy for three months and was set to finish in two weeks.
"He was the best of all of us," Canario García said. "All he ever did was study and run. That's all he ever did."
The Worcester County District Attorney's Office said it was reviewing the incident and noted that the trainee, whom it did not identify, had worked at the office.
"Our office’s thoughts and prayers are with he and his family at this time," a representative said in a statement.
"Enrique was a fine young man who devoted himself to the service of others as a member of the 90th Recruit Training Troop and in his former role as a victim witness advocate in the Worcester County District Attorney's Office," Mawn said of Delgado-Garcia in his statement. "In his short time with the State Police, Enrique demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to learn and a desire to deliver excellent police services to the people of Massachusetts. He made an immediate impression on his classmates and the Academy Staff. By all accounts, Enrique possessed and displayed all the qualities that would have made him an outstanding Trooper: kindness and compassion, dedication, commitment, willingness to work hard to improve himself, and a strong desire help others."
He said the department will "continue to support Enrique's family, and honor his memory," as well as "our members, trainees, and their families as they cope with this heartbreaking loss."
Security analyst Todd McGhee lobbied to bring the program back when he was a member of the state police, though with the understanding it wasn't going to be, as he put it, "a cowboy event."
"They had to have protocols, they had to have conditions placed within it for safety reasons," he said, adding that it would be important to see what safety protocols were in place, and if they were being followed, as Thursday's incident was being investigated.
Last year, the NBC10 Boston Investigators found that 46% of all trainees in last year's class dropped out within weeks of the start of training.
