Heartbroken family of Trooper Enrique Delgado-García say ‘nobody will give us updates’ about what caused his death

When Enrique Delgado-García told his mother he wanted to join the Massachusetts State Police in the spring of 2024, she struggled with his decision.

“The truth is, I didn’t agree,” Sandra García said on a recent afternoon in her Worcester home. “I told Enrique that I didn’t like that … because it scared me.”

Nearly a month away from the first anniversary of the death of Trooper Enrique Delgado-García after a training exercise at the Massachusetts State Police Academy in New Braintree, his family is still looking for answers.

His mother, stepfather, sister and cousin spoke with El Planeta and MassLive during a recent interview about his life, his aspirations and what motivated the 25-year-old to become a state police officer.

In the living room of their home, the family of State Trooper Enrique Delgado García sat down for an interview. From left to right: His sister Cinthia Ramírez García holding Alexander, Enrique’s 5-month-old nephew whom he never got to meet; Enrique’s mother, Sandra García; and his stepfather, José Ramón Pérez. (Gustavo Atencio Flores/MassLive)

A painted portrait of Delgado-García hangs in the family’s living room. His face is smiling broadly in the painting, as seen in so many of his photos. A pair of faded neon-green and blue Nike sneakers he wore during high school cross country is on a nearby bureau.

His state police trooper’s hat is next to the dining room table, surrounded by his photograph, a WooSox hat and a baseball.

García felt nervous about her son going to the State Police Academy, but never imagined he’d be in any danger there. She expected he’d face danger once he graduated and became a police officer on patrol, dealing with criminals.

At the time, his stepfather and older sister explained to García that it was her son’s dream to join the state police and that he aspired to become a detective and advance in a criminal justice career.

“And I said, ‘OK,’ but it was not my desire, truthfully,” she said during an interview conducted in Spanish.

His death in September 2024, three weeks before graduating from the 90th Recruit Training Troop, remains a painful mystery for the family, who are still waiting on the results of an independent investigation into the circumstances of his death after a training exercise incident.

“In reality, I never felt scared when he was in the academy; I never feared for him there,” García 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.”

She received an invitation to attend the graduation ceremony on Oct. 9, 2024, at Worcester’s DCU Center from Gov. Maura Healey. Instead, she and her family visited her son’s grave at the cemetery.

A moment of silence was held for Delgado-García inside the DCU Center during the ceremony, and a video recorded while he was in training with the academy was played on the arena Jumbotron.

“Prior to the academy, I worked in the DA’s office as a victim witness advocate,” Delgado-García’s voice rang out through the hundreds in the audience. “The reason I stayed was because I want to help people.”

“I want to be there for them on their worst days and help make that bad day a little bit better,” Delgado-García said. He repeated himself in Spanish. “The reason I stay is because I want to help people … be an officer and make the world a better place.”

A painted portrait of Enrique Delgado-García hangs in the living room of the family’s home in Worcester. (Gustavo Atencio Flores/MassLive)

‘I told him to leave [the academy], and he told me no’

Delgado-García started the 25-week Massachusetts State Police Academy program on April 9, 2024. Recruits live at the academy Monday through Friday, waking at 5:30 a.m. for physical training and continuing with academic instruction until 8 p.m. Lights out is at 9:30 p.m. On weekends, they’re allowed to go home.

Throughout their training, recruits go through more than 90 courses, ranging from criminal and traffic law to defensive tactics, firearms training, first aid, ethics and community relations.

They also learn about evidence handling, patrol procedures and judicial processes, and participate in practical exercises designed to mirror real-life situations. Most spend an additional three months in the field training under the supervision of experienced troopers.

Delgado-García returned from his first week of training having lost weight, according to his family. He said recruits had just five minutes to eat while standing, and described the physical training as extreme.

“Enrique cried a lot. I told him to leave it, and he told me no, that he could do it and make it to the end,” his mother recalled. “I truly never feared the academy. My fear was always of when he left and became an officer who went out on the streets. My fear was that a criminal would kill him.”

State police data obtained through a public records request shows that 24 out of 285 recruits in Delgado-García’s class reported injuries at the academy. Nine of those recruits eventually withdrew from the program. Injuries among recruits included wounded knees, a broken pinky finger and ankle sprains, among others.

In total, 35% of recruits withdrew from Delgado-García’s class — the 90th training troop — or 99 out of 285.

The 90th Recruit Training Troop graduation ceremony in Worcester’s DCU on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Luis Fieldman/MassLive)

Delgado-García’s older sister, Cinthia Ramírez, also told him to leave the academy, but he told her and their mother that he would make it to the end and become a police officer.

Then on Sept. 12, 2024, a state police officer called García and told her to rush to the hospital because something had happened to her son.

Over the next 24 hours, she’d learn that her son was intubated due to severe head trauma and that he could not breathe on his own. A doctor told García they were not expecting him to survive.

Nearly 11 months later, his family is still searching for answers about what happened that led to his death.

“They haven’t told me anything still,” García said.

Independent investigation launched

There is a small table dedicated to Delgado-García at the top of the stairs in his family’s home. A “Thin Blue Line” American flag on a framed canvas bears the name “Trooper Enrique Delgado-García” in black and gold letters. There are medals and trophies on the table from his childhood.

The family interview did not address the independent investigation by David Meier, a private defense attorney chosen by Attorney General Andrea Campbell to lead the inquiry into Delgado-García’s death.

An American flag featuring a thin blue line, set against an unmarked canvas bearing the name of Trooper Enrique Delgado-García in black and gold lettering. (Gustavo Atencio Flores/MassLive)

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.

Publicly, 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.

On Friday, a state police spokesman provided a statement to El Planeta and MassLive 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.

Protesters gathered outside the DCU in Worcester during graduation ceremonies for the 90th recruitment class. The protesters gathered in support of Enrique Delgado-García, a Massachusetts State Police trooper, who died on Sept. 13, 2024, from injuries suffered during a training incident at the police academy. (Luis Fieldman/MassLive)

‘He was my baby’

Enrique was born in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 2, 1999. He was the second child of Sandra García, who is Dominican.

“Enrique was the son I wished for and waited for over 7 years. I already had a girl, and when he was born, it was a beautiful day, it was very nice, he was my baby,” his mother said.

As a kid, he moved with his mother and sisters from the Dominican Republic to Worcester, where his aunts lived.

“He always had a good heart, was an excellent student, wanted to help [and] was a volunteer. I remember that during the pandemic he would collect food and hand it out in the fridges that were installed for the community,” his mother recalled. In his childhood, his mother said he was “very cheeky, playful, but at the same time very introverted, because he was big for his age. He was always a smart kid. I took care of him very much. It’s difficult because I was always with him until the day he passed, and I accompanied him to the goal he wanted to reach. This has been very hard for me.”

Delgado-García attended Elm Park Elementary School and graduated from Forest Grove Middle School. In 2017, he graduated with honors from North High School, excelling not only academically but also in track and basketball, where he won medals in both sports.

Enrique Delgado-García graduated from Westfield State University in West Springfield with a degree in Criminal Justice. The lakeside ceremony was held on May 13, 2022. In the photo, from left, are his aunts Marilin and Felicia García; his mother Sandra García; his stepfather José Pérez; and his cousin Omel Canario. (Courtesy of the Delgado-García’s family)

“He only went around with his books; he liked studying a lot and playing basketball,” his mother said with pride. Delgado-García successfully completed four Advanced Placement classes, earning him college credits.

He spoke perfect Spanish with a light accent. His favorite music was pop, but he couldn’t dance. He exercised early mornings and late nights, fitting workouts in before studying or working.

Despite Neftalí Delgado being his biological father, Delgado-García’s stepfather, José Ramón Pérez, was the father figure in his life from the age of seven. They played basketball together daily, and at 14, Pérez encouraged him to join the family business — Pérez Shipping Inc., a shipping and delivery company serving the Dominican Republic. But Pérez said, “For what it was worth, my efforts were useless. Enrique had other interests. He liked to study.”

“From when he was a kid, he was very special,” his mother said, to the extent that he did not eat fish because he wanted to be a biologist, that was until he changed his mind and saw an infirmary as a way to help people, he then wanted to be a nurse practitioner and enrolled at UMass Dartmouth. Later, he decided to leave medicine and began studying criminal justice, graduating on May 13, 2022, from Westfield State University in Westfield.

These shoes were used by Enrique Delgado García during his time in school. Today, they are one of his mother’s most precious memories. His gym teacher gave them to her at the funeral, explaining that Enrique had gifted them to him as something meaningful. (Gustavo Atencio Flores/MassLive)

While in college, Delgado-García participated in athletics and dedicated himself to community service. He helped the homeless, supported animal refuges, volunteered at St. Jude Children’s Hospital and dressed as Santa Claus to bring cheer to unhoused children.

“He was reserved about everything he did. Now that he died, I noticed he had little cards, gifts from the places he helped,” his mother said with admiration.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree, he started working at the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, defending victims for a year and a half. However, wanting to continue his professional growth, he reignited his dream of becoming a state police officer and decided to apply.

An urgent call to come to the hospital

Around noon on Sept. 12, 2024, García received a phone call from state police. The person on the other end didn’t speak Spanish, but said she needed to get to the hospital.

“They told me that Enrique Delgado had an accident, and I immediately thought the worst. I dropped everything,” she said. Her sister and niece were visiting when she received the call. At first, García thought that maybe the incident involved a gun.

She drove to the trauma unit at Worcester’s UMass Memorial Medical Center. She saw two troopers in the hospital wing, one of whom put a hand on her shoulder and said something had happened and they had brought Delgado-García to the hospital as a precaution.

“She told me not to worry,” García said. “She told me not to worry, that it’s nothing bad. That he was training, and he fainted, and, as a precaution, they brought him here.”

Deep down, García knew something was wrong.

Ramírez, Delgado-García’s older sister, arrived shortly after their mother. She approached one of the state police officers to ask about her brother’s condition. “They told me he was stable,” Ramírez said. “And it was a lie”.

She recalled that the emergency room where Delgado-García was taken on that fateful day was crowded with doctors, nurses and medical assistants. A group of state police officers waited outside.

“My brother was intubated, there were so many people that did not fit in the room, when the doctor looked at me, she told me that he would not survive. When I told this to my mother, she fell to the ground, and then we found out that Enrique had bled inside his brain”, she said, adding that doctors took two pupil tests to evaluate the neurological function of Delgado-García, both of which were unresponsive.

The pupil tests helped the doctors detect possible damage in the brain after a strike, according to neurologist Dr. Fernando Ramírez.

“If the pupils don’t react normally, it can be a sign of something serious, like swelling or internal bleeding,” the doctor said.

Cinthia Ramírez said the family spoke with a hospital surgeon while he looked at images of Delgado-García’s brain. The surgeon asked if he’d been in a car crash because the images looked like someone who’d been in a crash driving 100 mph.

When they told the doctor he was injured in a training exercise, the family remembers him saying, “How? What kind of training was that?”

García said last year that her son’s teeth were broken and he had a fractured neck.

By 4 p.m., doctors said that if his condition didn’t improve within 24 hours, they would disconnect him from life support. The following day, state police held a bilingual ceremony and pinned Delgado-García with a trooper’s badge and officially swore him in as a member of the state police.

The families of police officers killed in the line of duty are eligible for death, funeral and other compensation from the state and federal governments.

García visited her son in the hours before he died. At one point, she fell on top of him and held him in her arms and begged him to wake up.

He never did, but she saw a teardrop roll down from his eye.

The pain remains deep for the family of Delgado-García, who passed away 11 months ago. As of now, the circumstances of his death are still unclear; no formal charges have been brought, and no final investigation report has been published. The family continues to await definitive results.

“There are nights I don’t sleep, there are mornings when I wake up and I just start to cry and cry,” García said.

“The last time that he left [for the Academy], he told me, ‘Ma, there are only 3 weeks left, remember we have to be early on the day of graduation.’”