Massachusetts State Police Academy will pause recruit training to fix flaws

Massachusetts State Police Academy will delay training new recruits to implement urgent reforms tied to problems in management, culture, and safety that contributed to a trainee’s death. An independent yearlong investigation produced recommendations released Wednesday. Academy leaders plan new training for instructors, improved tracking of injuries, and hiring a civilian training director. The reforms are intended to overhaul culture and curriculum over the next five years, with all recommendations adopted over time. The next academy session, previously scheduled for June, will be postponed until 22 urgent recommendations are implemented, a process expected to take several months. The state will also pay an outside entity to monitor progress toward a safety-first culture.

"The Massachusetts State Police Academy will postpone training of new recruits until it puts in place urgent reforms to correct problems with its management, culture and safety that led to the death of one trainee, its leaders said this week. The changes, recommended in an independent report that was released Wednesday after a yearlong investigation, will include new training for instructors, better tracking of injuries and the hiring of a civilian training director."

"Leaders of the academy said Tuesday that they would spend the next five years overhauling its culture and curriculum, guided by the report's recommendations. Col. Geoffrey Noble, the head of the Massachusetts State Police, said that the start of the academy's next session, previously set for June, would be postponed until 22 of the most urgent recommendations in the report could be instituted, a process expected to take several months. Over the next several years, all 100 of the report's recommendations will be adopted, Noble said."

"The outside review was requested by Gov. Maura Healey after a state police trainee, 25-year-old Enrique Delgado Garcia, died two years ago from injuries he suffered in a boxing match at the academy. The state paid nearly $600,000 for the independent examination of the academy, which was conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia."

"He said the state would pay an outside entity to monitor the institution's progress toward "a safety first culture." "That is a proper recommendation, to ensure that I as a colonel, and we as an agency, are held accountable," Noble said as he faced a roomful of reporters at a briefing Tuesday at state police headquarters in Framingham. "That's the way it should be.""

Read at Boston.com