Law Police Boxing Training Death: UPDATE - ACLU Involved

[TeTe]

We did this type of training in the academy. I can see how it can get out of hand. My questions are who was running the training, who was punching, what safety gear was in place?

That said, it’s very necessary cause unfortunately people do try and punch you in police work. Many trainees have never been in a fight in their life and seeing how they react to being punched in the academy is a lot safer then figuring it out in the field.

At one of the boxing gyms I trained at we had a lot of police officers that came in to train. They even said that they preferred training around competitive boxers cause the police training was a shit show.

We also had Chicago Wolves players (minor league hockey team) come it to train so they could learn how to fight on skates lol.

 

[jx820]

Any decent trainer at a boxing gym wouldn't let sparring get the far.

Yeah, I'd bet they were a bit lax, but I'm not ready to say it was preventable without more info.

My understanding of the academy (and I've only heard 2nd hand) is that they don't have you for that long and you may have to fight for your life soon, so it's a bit more sink or swim than an experienced trainer might like.

 

[nhbbear]

The day I did my boxing at the academy was my favorite day. I fought a guy no one else wanted to fight because he had punching power. He did and hit me once but I only had to hit him once and knocked him out cold.

But academies are getting away from this practice because of the risks

 

[LangfordBarrow]

And this response proves you're dense. But we already knew that.

It's boxing, bro. If his gameplan went out the window simply because he got punched, that's like a swimmer forgetting how to swim once he gets wet.

Are you a big boxing fan? He's talking about the gameplan. You can plan to box around a puncher until he lands a punch that wobbles you. If you keep boxing is he going to keep landing big shots or is it time to change the gameplan? Some guys get hurt with a punch and automatically go wild swinging for the fences. I think it's probably one of his best quotes.

 

[LangfordBarrow]

But he said "everyone". That includes himself. It sounds like projection. We know Tyson was mentally weak, as he lost every time he was in with a man tough enough to give as good as they got.

Most of his losses came far past his prime. Tyson already had a different group around him than the one that made him a champion for years before he went to prison.

 

[Renard]

Suspicious, as in his opponent wanted to kill him? Unlikely. Newbies don't understand what they're doing, his sparring partner accidentally using too much strength is possible.

Any strong hit to the head is inherently dangerous because it can lead to a stroke. He may also have not received a strong hit but had an undiagnosed circulatory condition and when the hit happened it affected him more than someone else. A coroner report could give some answers.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

They should probably move away from boxing and train MMA, BJJ, or judo instead.

 

[method115]

The day I did my boxing at the academy was my favorite day. I fought a guy no one else wanted to fight because he had punching power. He did and hit me once but I only had to hit him once and knocked him out cold.

But academies are getting away from this practice because of the risks

It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea to anyone who hasn't trained any martial arts in their life. If you have you know right away that without proper guidance it will quickly spin out of control with guys just trying to KO each other.

 

[Sinister]

I always thought this quote gave us a window into Tyson's mind and proved he was mentally weak.

Tyson didn't invent that quote, it was likely something D'Amato told him as was every other notable philosophical quote he said during his earlier career

 

[Sinister]

I think he meant that the plan goes out of the window once they feel how hard he hits.

Its likely a modern version of an old Dempsey quote where Dempsey was asked how he defeated such a good "thinking" fighter. He said something like:

"He was thinking alright, thinking about this move or that move. And all the time he was thinking I was hitting him."

 

[Sinister]

I'm sure some War Room visitors are knowledgeable about boxing. Does this strike you as a real training accident, or does it sound suspicious? The Massachusetts AG appointed an independent investigator.

Boxing training suspended at Massachusetts police academy after recruit's death​

This could have been a freak accident, but it's not likely. This is the result of careless supervision in the gym and allowing people to spar too hard, or too frequently, and a lack of quality of instruction on receiving hits. If he was knocked out for 10 minutes, either that was tremendously hard impact one time...or the result of cumulative damage and doing sh*t like sparring when he had a headache that he didnt know was being caused by something worse (maybe had a headache for a few days in a row, or woke up with them) and either he didnt tell anyone or he did and they told him he needed to tough it out.

 

[Sinister]

The day I did my boxing at the academy was my favorite day. I fought a guy no one else wanted to fight because he had punching power. He did and hit me once but I only had to hit him once and knocked him out cold.

But academies are getting away from this practice because of the risks

No one should ever be getting knocked out cold in a training session. It happens, but it should be consciously avoided.

 

[Andy Capp]

This shit happens with boxing. We had a kid die shortly after his fight up here in Oregon, and a few years back it happened at a frat house boxing event too. Both cases the kids seemed ok afterwards for a short time before collapsing

Apropos of this, I was listening to a radio show earlier talking about how without an autopsy, a great many sudden deaths are attributed to heart attack when it's some other condition, like an aorta dissecting--which apparently is a genetic defect people can pass on. So, when there's no identified family history of a certain condition (since their deaths were written off instead of thoroughly examined), the misdiagnosis of the cause of death is propagated. The kid could have had something his whole family suffers from without him ever knowing.

Sometimes, the places we choose to cut corners to save money (like no autopsy for a presumed heart attack) can really bite people on the arse in unexpected ways. I believe the one place where money should be no object is healthcare.

 

[Andy Capp]

Suspicious, as in his opponent wanted to kill him? Unlikely. Newbies don't understand what they're doing, his sparring partner accidentally using too much strength is possible.

Any strong hit to the head is inherently dangerous because it can lead to a stroke. He may also have not received a strong hit but had an undiagnosed circulatory condition and when the hit happened it affected him more than someone else. A coroner report could give some answers.

Indeed, see my post immediately above.

 

[Osculater]

A cop friend of mine described that the sparring at the academy can get out of hand. That is true of any sparring environment even with pros. You probably have guys at the acadamy who have minimal training room experience and don't know how to set a tone and a pace and will try to one up each other or want to test themselves.

Not saying that's what happened here, but it seems unlikely someone got knocked out for 10 minutes then died in a light spar.

My guess is they probably went harder than their experience should have allowed. I'd also guess they're going to find an underlying medical condition. I expect it's a tragic accident.

Yeah, I have sparred before with new guys were we are supposedly be going 40% power, but we get caught up and end up going 80/90 percent hard

 

[Osculater]

Apropos of this, I was listening to a radio show earlier talking about how without an autopsy, a great many sudden deaths are attributed to heart attack when it's some other condition, like an aorta dissecting--which apparently is genetic defect people can pass on. So, when there's no identified family history of a certain condition (since their deaths were written off instead of thoroughly examined), the misdiagnosis of the cause of death is propagated. The kid could have had something his whole family suffers from without him ever knowing.

Sometimes, the places we choose to cut corners to save money (like no autopsy for a presumed heart attack) can really bite people on the arse in unexpected ways. I believe the one place where money should be no object is healthcare.

The family could pay for an independent private autopsy

 

[Andy Capp]

Nice aggression. Did I hurt your feelings in another thread or something?

Also, anyone that actually saw Tyson's fights saw this exact thing happening. Since he's short, they all thought they'd keep him away with their jab and box from the outside. But one hard hook and they were scrambling and flailing around.

So it's not literally "until you get punched in the face," but more like "once you get hit by a hard punch by a once-in-a-generation power puncher." If you needed all that spelled out you might be a little dense.

"Might"?

 

[Andy Capp]

The family could pay for an independent private autopsy

"could". My point exactly.

 

[Thrawn33]

A police cadet died during police boxing training. The training may or may not have been the reason for the death. The state is investigating as they should and autopsy results pending.

Anything else is pure speculation on our parts.


Sadly they'll probably cut back on live sparring which will cause future officers to panic when they get hit for real for the first time on the streets leading to an escalation of force, leading to more bad blood, ect, ect

 

[wwkirk]

Well, this IS The War Room, ain't it? It's started:

ACLU calls for federal investigation into Massachusetts State Police recruit’s death ​

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