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The supervisor and three full-time instructors facing manslaughter charges were suspended with pay following duty status hearings.
Massachusetts State Police Command Staff and over 180 recruits from the 90th Recruit Training Troop stand in formation outside Mercadante Funeral Home & Chapel in Worcester, Mass. Erin Clark/The Boston Globe
The four State Police members facing criminal charges related to the 2024 death of recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia have been suspended with pay, the agency said.
Lt. Jennifer Penton and Troopers Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez, and Casey LaMonte were initially relieved of duty last week. The State Police held duty status hearings for each of the four members, after which they could have been retained on full duty, placed on restricted duty, suspended with pay, or suspended without pay.
After reviewing all available information, Penton, Rodriguez, Montanez, and LaMonte were each suspended with pay, MSP said Thursday. If additional information becomes available through judicial processes, the department said, additional duty status hearings could be scheduled.
Delgado-Garcia, 25, died Sept. 13, 2024 a day after becoming unresponsive during a defensive tactics exercise and suffering a “medical crisis.” He died accidentally of blunt-force injuries to his head, his family’s lawyer told the media last year.
After an independent investigation conducted by independent attorney David Meier, the supervisor and three full-time instructors at the State Police training academy were each charged with causing serious bodily injury to participants in a physical exercise training program and involuntary manslaughter.
Penton, the supervisor who graduated from the State Police Academy in 2016, was also charged with perjury. She allegedly lied under oath when asked when she first learned about Delgado-Garcia’s concussion-like symptoms, Meier last week.
Penton was last assigned to the Revere Barracks. LaMonte graduated in 2020 and was assigned to the MSP’s certification unit, which conducts background investigations on recruits and others. Rodriguez and Montanez both graduated in 2021 and were assigned to the academy.
State police officials said none of the four have ever been subject to disciplinary actions before this investigation, Boston.com previously reported.
Previously, State Police Col. Geoffrey Noble, appointed to lead MSP a few weeks after Delgado-Garcia’s death, commissioned a review of training programs, split the cohort into two smaller groups, and appointed new academy leadership.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police is conducting an independent review of all MSP training practices, which Noble said last week is nearing completion.
Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.
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