The Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards on Thursday confirmed it is weighing whether to investigate the death of Enrique Delgado-Garcia at the Massachusetts State Police training facility in New Braintree.
“(The Department of Labor Standards) is currently in its information gathering phase to determine whether it will open an investigation,” the agency, a division of the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, wrote in a statement to the Telegram & Gazette.
Any such review, if conducted, would not be criminal, the agency said, as the department investigations examine compliance with standards for work-related safety regulations set by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
While OSHA has jurisdiction to probe private-sector workplace deaths, it does not have jurisdiction over state employees, a spokesperson for that agency told the T&G.
That jurisdiction falls to the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards, which, according to state regulations , has the “right to compel witnesses and evidence” as well as to issue fines and stop-work orders for violations of safety regulations.