2026.4.3 3 state troopers plead not guilty to charges connected to death of recruit after boxing match
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A supervisor and two instructors with a Massachusetts State Police tactical unit plead not guilty Thursday in connection with the death of a recruit who suffered a concussion during a sparring session and blunt force injuries a day later in what investigators called an “unapproved and unsafe” boxing match.
Enrique Delgado-Garcia, 25, died at a hospital on Sept. 13, 2024, a day after undergoing a “medical crisis” and becoming unresponsive during a defensive tactics exercise in the boxing ring, authorities said at the time. Charges in these types of cases are exceedingly rare.
David Meier, an investigator appointed by Massachusetts’ attorney general, announced in February that the supervisor and the instructors in the police academy’s defensive tactics unit were being charged with involuntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily injury to a person participating in training. The supervisor also was charged with perjury in connection with her grand jury testimony.
Meier had said unsafe sparring sessions led to the trainee’s concussion, adding he sustained “multiple blunt force injuries to the head and massive brain bleeding” a day later after academy staff failed to stop a training boxing match.
Lt. Jennifer Penton, the supervisor and a sergeant at the time she was charged, along with Troopers Edwin Rodriguez and David Montanez, entered not guilty pleas to all charges before Worcester Superior Court Judge J. Gavin Reardon Jr.. A fourth trooper, Casey LaMonte, faces arraignment April 14.
All plead not guilty
In a packed courtroom, Penton, Rodriguez and Montanez stood together and responded “not guilty” as the charges were read. Across the courtroom, relatives of Delgado-Garcia watched quietly. A handful of people outside court help up signs showing the trainee’s face and the words, “Justice For Enrique.”
The three defendants were released on personal recognizance under several conditions including having no contact with potential witnesses in the case.
Outside court, the family’s attorney, Mike Wilcox, said Thursday was “a difficult and long day” for Delgado-Garcia’s relatives, some seen holding back tears.
“They’ve been patient. They have been gracious through all this. They have shown nothing but class,” Wilcox said.
“They are grieving still, as you can tell, and they are going to stick with this process for as long as it takes,” he said. “They want justice for Enrique, and they want to make sure that the process is fair and that Enrique is heard here.”
The defendants didn’t speak exiting the court but their attorneys called the death a “tragic accident” and said the three were just doing their jobs and would be found innocent.
“The tragedy of Trooper Delgado is not a crime. Filing these criminal charges will not bring Trooper Delgado Garcia back,” Penton’s lawyer Brad Bailey said. “The Commonwealth’s effort to apply … convoluted legal theory to the underlying facts will not change them. Nor will it transform this tragedy into criminal conduct.”
Attorney defends training and troopers
Kevin Reddington, representing Montanez, described all three troopers as “good people” and defended the training as necessary to prepare recruits for their crime-fighting duties.
“It’s so easy for people to say oh my goodness that was just too rough,” Reddington said. “This is reckless conduct that they’re alleging, manslaughter charges that they are alleging against people that were doing their job, consistent with rules, regulations, and what has been recognized as valid training.”
Brian Williams, the president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, also defended the troopers.
“These members and our entire defensive tactics staff are among the best in the nation and all established protocols were strictly followed,” he said.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell appointed Meier in February and said it was important to have an independent, impartial investigatio. It follows calls from advocacy groups and Delgado-Garcia’s family and friends for those responsible to be held accountable.
More than 30 recruits have died in academies since 2015
An Associated Press investigation, “ Dying to Serve, ” has found that more than 30 recruits have died during law enforcement academies since 2015, caused by a mix of violent or grueling training exercises, heat, exertion and other medical conditions.
The number of deaths have risen in recent years as departments turn to less-traditional candidates to fill openings but maintain longstanding academy drills. Investigators have generally treated them as unfortunate but unavoidable medical incidents, and criminal charges have rarely been considered.
The charges in Massachusetts are believed to be the first related to a police academy recruit’s death in years. In examining the deaths of 37 recruits since 2005, AP could not find any other case that led to criminal charges.
Other forms of legal accountability, including civil lawsuits and workplace safety investigations, have also rarely been pursued. Families have struggled to collect federal death benefits, even after Congress passed a law clarifying that recruits were eligible.
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2026.4.2 What to know about serial killer Ted Bundy and his rampage of violence
Ted Bundy’s rampage of violence spanned at least four years and left dozens of victims behind, including at least 30 women and girls who were killed — and several others who escaped or survived despite serious injuries.
Though the serial killer has been dead for nearly 40 years, the tally of his confirmed victims continues to grow as DNA testing has advanced. A Utah sheriff confirmed Wednesday that Bundy was responsible for the unsolved death of a Utah teen in 1974. The office expected another cold case would also be “close to closure” soon thanks to the creation of Bundy’s full DNA profile, Utah County sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Reynolds said.
Bundy is one of the most prolific serial killers in United States history — though others likely had higher total victim counts, including Gary Ridgway, who admitted to killing 49; Samuel Little, who killed more than 60; and Donald Harvey who pleaded guilty to killing 37 people.
Bundy drew widespread fascination, in part because many considered him to be charming and handsome at his 1979 trial.
Here are some things to know about Bundy and his crimes.
He targeted young women and girls
It’s unknown when Bundy first began his attacks, but the deaths linked to him began in Washington state in 1974. He had grown up in Tacoma, Washington, and many of his earliest known violent crimes happened around Seattle.
An 18-year-old University of Washington student was sleeping in her home near the Seattle campus in January 1974 when someone broke in and attacked her, leaving her with a fractured skull. She survived but with permanent injuries. Bundy was believed to be responsible for the crime, which fit a pattern he established in later years, often breaking into young women’s homes, bludgeoning and sexually assaulting them, and either leaving them to die or dumping their bodies elsewhere.
The next month, Lynda Ann Healy, another University of Washington student, vanished from her home. A small bit of blood was found on her bedding, and her remains were found the next year on Taylor Mountain, a remote area outside a neighboring city. The remains of some of Bundy’s other victims were also found at the same site.
Over the next few months, other women were also abducted from Washington state and Oregon. In some of the cases, witnesses saw the women talking to a man who was wearing an arm sling.
By October, teen girls in Utah were also vanishing. The body of 17-year-old Melissa Anne Smith was found on a hillside in Summit Park, Utah, and her head had been beaten with a crowbar.
Carol DaRonch, an 18-year-old, was snatched by Bundy when he claimed to be a police officer investigating car break-ins. But she survived by jumping out of his car after he tried to handcuff her. DaRonch’s testimony would later be instrumental in putting Bundy behind bars.
Bundy continued killing throughout the next year in Utah, Colorado and Idaho.
He escaped law enforcement custody twice
Bundy was arrested for the first time in connection with the disappearances August 1975, when police pulled him over and found incriminating items including rope, handcuffs and a ski mask, in his vehicle.
He was found guilty the following year of kidnapping and assaulting DaRonch. Bundy was sentenced to 15 years in prison for that crime, and while imprisoned he was charged in connection with the earlier death of a nursing student.
He was brought to Aspen, Colorado, for a hearing in that case in 1977, and he escaped custody by climbing out a second-story courthouse window. He was caught about a week later, but escaped again six months later by breaking through the ceiling of a jail.
That time Bundy fled across the country, eventually making his way to Tallahassee, Florida. On Jan. 15, 1978, he entered the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University, bludgeoning two women to death with a large branch and leaving two more badly injured. He then went to another house nearby, badly injuring another sleeping woman.
Less than a month later, he abducted, sexually assaulted and killed a 12-year-old girl in Lake City, Florida. Kimberly Leach was believed to be his final victim: Bundy was arrested when he was pulled over in Pensacola while driving a stolen vehicle.
He was seen as a handsome charmer
Bundy’s case, and his self-assured attitude in court, drew widespread attention during his 1979 trial for the Chi Omega murders.
“I don’t know what it is he has, but he’s fascinating,” one teenage spectator told an AP reporter covering the trial. “He’s impressive. He just has a kind of magnetism.”
Even the judge presiding over the trial said Bundy was a “bright young man” who would have made a good lawyer. But Judge Edward Cowart also recognized Bundy as a horrifically violent killer and sentencing him to die for “extremely wicked, shocking evil and vile” crimes.
Bundy was executed on Jan. 24, 1989 by electric chair in Florida. He gave a series of confessions in his final days, including to some crimes that were previously unknown to police. Not all of those cases have been confirmed.
DNA testing led to the latest confirmed victim
New DNA testing confirmed that more than 50 years ago, Bundy also killed 17-year-old Laura Ann Aime.
Aime went missing in Utah on Halloween night in 1974, and her body was found a month later on the side of a highway. Authorities believed she had been kept alive for several days after her abduction.
Bundy had long been a suspect in the case, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him while he was alive. Luckily, the evidence from the case was carefully preserved, and advancements in DNA forensic technology eventually allowed investigators to extract a DNA profile to match Bundy and officially close Aime’s case. _
Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Laura Ann Aime was last seen alive leaving a Halloween party in 1974.
Authorities in Utah said Wednesday they have confirmed “without a doubt” that Ted Bundy murdered a 17-year-old girl more than 50 years ago, in a case long suspected to have been tied to the notorious serial killer.
Laura Ann Aime was last seen alive leaving a Halloween party in Utah County in 1974, authorities said. Her body was found a month later by two college students on a Thanksgiving Day hike in American Fork Canyon, according to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. She had been beaten and strangled, and her naked body was found bound, according to authorities.
The crime had similarities to those committed by Bundy, who admitted to kidnapping and murdering young women throughout the Western United States in the 1970s. Prior to his execution in 1989, he even confessed to Aime’s killing — though his confession “was deemed to be not enough evidence to close the case and rule out any other party having had committed this crime,” Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
Now, the sheriff’s office said it is able to close Aime’s case — with bodily fluids recovered from her body matching Bundy’s DNA profile.
“We can now say, without a doubt, that Theodore ‘Ted’ Bundy did in fact did murder Laura Ann Aime in the fall of 1974, and that law enforcement now has DNA testing results that are compatible with the latest DNA testing standards,” Smith said. “This will make any future DNA test comparison easier for those law enforcement agencies who still have open cases involving Bundy.”
If Bundy were still alive, Smith said his office “would have pursued this case to the fullest extent” and asked the Utah County Attorney’s Office to seek the death penalty.
Bundy was convicted of three murders in Florida and was executed by electric chair in 1989 at the age of 42. Prior to his execution, he confessed to killing 30 people, though is believed to have killed more than 100.
Aime’s sister, Michelle Impala, was 12 when her sister was murdered. She said they were “really close.”
“We rode horses together, she was very passionate about animals and her horse,” Impala said at the briefing.
“She was just fun,” Impala said. “I thought she was fun because, you know, I’m a little kid just following her around, but we have a lot in common — the love of animals and just being outside and doing the things that you do when you live on a farm full of animals.”
Impala said her sister and their parents would be happy to know that the case is now officially closed, and thanked the sheriff’s office for being “so passionate” about resolving it.
“It’s really quite amazing that people even are still interested in Laura’s case. But I appreciate it,” she said.
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A young couple shot dead in an apparent murder-suicide in a Queens apartment had a stormy relationship, with neighbors saying their shouting matches could be heard throughout the building.
Keyriana Jimenez Rodriguez, 18, and her 20-year-old boyfriend were found dead in an 84th St. apartment near 34th Ave. in Jackson Heights around 1:50 a.m., cops said.
In the moments before they were killed, witnesses overheard arguing, followed by several shots being fired, according to a law enforcement source.
“They were always fighting. It was terrible,” said a 63-year-old neighbor, who asked that her name be withheld. “They would shout awful things at one another. Everyone could hear. It was continual.”
The boyfriend’s 19-year-old brother, who was in another room at their sixth-floor apartment, and a neighbor called 911 after hearing the shots.
Police believe the man shot his girlfriend, then turned the gun on himself. The man’s name was not immediately released.
“He had serious problems with his girlfriend. He couldn’t contain his emotions,” said a 65-year-old neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous. “I couldn’t believe it because he said he was happy he had just found a job.”
“I only met his girlfriend once or twice,” he added. “She seemed nice.”
Rodriguez’s family hails from the Dominican Republic, where they were horrified to learn of her death, according to a local news outlet.
“This has been a massive shock for the family,” the victim’s father, Kelvin Adrián Jiménez, told Info El Nuevo Norte in Spanish.
The girl’s grandmother, Adriana de la Cruz, said in Spanish that she “absolutely adored” Rodriguez, whom she remembered as “more than a granddaughter, like a daughter.”
Rodriguez was reportedly living in the United States with her mother. Neighbors said her boyfriend lived with his father and two brothers, but were unsure whether couple lived together.
Los Angeles cops are stomping out the city’s scourge of street takeovers with hundreds of arrests this year, Chief Jim McDonnell said Thursday.
The illegal gatherings, where burnout-loving mobs destroy, vandalize and steal, have worsened since January, according to city officials, prompting Mayor Karen Bass last month to announce increased patrols in downtown LA.
The social-media fueled takeovers often pop off on weekend nights throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Cars block intersections and create a “pit” for other drivers to rip burnouts and donuts. Spectators flock around the middle, filming cars as they screech past, with daring passengers hanging dangerously from their windows.
Even if the drivers avoid an accident, cops say takeovers result in traffic blockages, damage to roadways, noise, litter and other problems for residents and businesses.
And more often, cops say, the takeover mobs are spinning out of control.
A violent takeover in downtown LA last month March spiraled into chaos, with participants causing thousands of dollars in damage to the luxury Circa LA Apartments across the street from the LA Convention Center.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to almost 700 street takeovers last year, McDonnell said in an appearance on KTLA. Cops made 1,700 traffic stops related to the vehicular mayhem and issued more than 1,700 citations, he said.
In all, police made nearly 300 arrests, at takeovers last year, said McDonnell, and the department is “were trending in that direction again this year.”
But crushing the takeovers is a challenge, he said, in part because they often draw hundreds of participants.
“Look at the number of people around there,” McDonnell said of the mobs. “There are people around for the blocks around it, as well.”
Takeovers draw throngs of cars, as well as spectators on foot, who occupy streets and sidewalks.
The sheer numbers make it difficult to get police cars and officers into the pit, “to be able to do enforcement,” McDonnell said.
When cops finally do penetrate, McDonnell said, they often find themselves badly outnumbered. “When you get in there, if you go in with a single car or a couple of cars, you get overwhelmed by the crowd,” he said
The department has a special taskforce to fight the takeovers, said McDonnell. It’s regarded by cops as one of the trickiest beats, because the takeovers are often organized online with just hours’ notice or seemingly materialize from thin air.
“It’s hard to prevent them from happening,” said McDonnell. “They’re spontaneous. We scour the web to be able to try and come up with where these are going to be, as best we can.”
One proven tactic for fighting takeovers is to increase patrols, cops say. Just days after the takeover near the Circa LA Apartments exploded into a riot, Bass announced that the LAPD would launch a strategic deployment across downtown LA.
The new policing push floods the area with patrol cars, horse-mounted officers, foot patrols and undercover units, according to the mayor’s office.
“What happened at Circa LA Apartments is despicable,” said Bass. “And we have zero tolerance for street takeovers.”
City officials said the fortified police force will remain in place as authorities try to prevent future takeovers — and send the message that the city’s downtown hub is safe.
The moped-riding goons who shot a 7-month-old Brooklyn girl to death in her stroller were aiming for her dad, law enforcement sources said.
Little Kaori’s father, Jamari Patterson, who lives in the nearby Bushwick Houses, was apparently targeted in the brazen Wednesday afternoon hit over a social media beef with a crew from a rival housing project, investigators now believe, the sources said.
Patterson and Kaori’s mom were pushing a double stroller with the baby girl and her 2-year-old brother near the corner of Humboldt and Moore Streets in East Williamsburg when the deadly duo opened fire from a moped around 1:20 p.m., according to cops.
The gunmen missed Patterson, 22, but struck the helpless tot in the head with the bullet, which then grazed her 2-year-old brother’s back before the thugs sped off.
“We thought it was fireworks, but my son jumped out of the stroller and I picked him up and carried him,” Kaori’s devastated mom Lianna Charles-Moore, 20, told The Post Wednesday.
“I was hugging him and then when I looked to my left, my daughter was just there, lying there. She was shot in the head. She was just bleeding. It was just too much.”
The baby was rushed to Woodhall Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 1:46 p.m.
The perps crashed their moped two blocks away from the shooting scene.
Th alleged shooter Amuri Greene, 21, flipped off the e-bike and ended up in the hospital, where he was identified as a person of interest in the baby’s death.
Greene remained hospitalized with a leg injury Thursday and has not yet been charged, however, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said he is expected to face murder charges.
The accused baby killer lives in the Marcy Houses, which has had a longstanding feud with the Bushwick Houses, according to sources. The NYCHA facilities are less than a mile apart.
Meanwhile, a “massive NYPD manhunt” has been launched to track down the driver of the moped, who fled the scene and is on the lam, Tisch said.
Kaori’s heartbroken mom said she wants justice for her baby girl who had just begun to say “mamma” before her tragic death.
2026.4.1 Dine-and-dash diva carted off in ambulance after discovering she’s still locked out of luxury NYC pad
Check, please.
Notorious dine-and-dash diva Pei Chung was hauled off on a gurney Tuesday night after returning to her luxury Williamsburg waterfront apartment, only to discover she was still locked out.
Photos obtained by The Post show Chung, 34, strapped to a stretcher inside an ambulance outside the building, capping another chaotic chapter for the Taiwanese national who made headlines for allegedly skipping out on tabs at nearly a dozen high-end restaurants in Brooklyn.
The Prada-loving faux foodie was booted from her $3,500-a-month plush pad at 416 Kent Ave. back in December for owing $40,000 in overdue rent and has since bounced between Rikers Island and psychiatric wards.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the 911 call, what ailment she suffered or where she was taken.
Chung had been facing multiple counts of theft of services for allegedly stiffing several of the Big Apple’s ritziest restaurants after ordering hundreds of dollars’ worth of food, but a judge tossed the charges last month after she was found mentally unfit to stand trial.
She was sent to a state hospital for mental health treatment following the dismissal of charges.
The serial scofflaw still has an active immigration detainer, though it remains unclear whether she is facing formal deportation proceedings.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The wannabe influencer’s dining crime spree brought her infamy rather than social clout after restaurants across Williamsburg reported her waltzing out on checks — instead offering a measly social post.
Chung often posted about the pricey dishes on her page in addition to running a mediocre blog reviewing her meals. She had been known to bring her own lighting equipment and camera to record herself as a supposed influencer trying out the dishes.
Unimpressed by the offer, some of Brooklyn’s priciest spots, including Misi, Francie, Lavender Lake, Motorino and Peter Luger, had called the cops on her bill-skipping shenanigans.
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