Dying to serve: Dozens of recruits have died nationwide while training to become police officers

Ronald Donat’s longtime dream of becoming a police officer was in jeopardy.

The 41-year-old struggled to stand after completing a flurry of pushups, sprints and pullups in the notoriously grueling start of physical training that recruits call “Hell Day.”

“You are dead!” classmates recall a sergeant berating Donat, ordering him to sit on concrete at the suburban Atlanta police academy.

Donat, a Haitian immigrant on his third attempt to land a law enforcement job, assured instructors he wasn’t giving up. He managed to get off the ground and rejoin recruits in a bear crawl exercise. But he soon went limp.

One hundred minutes after training began that October 2021 morning, he was dead, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Donat is among at least 29 recruits who died during basic training at law enforcement academies around the country in the last decade, an AP investigation found. Most died of exertion, dehydration, heat stroke and other conditions tied to intense exercise — often on the first day of training, like Donat. Others died several weeks in, sometimes after suffering trauma during boxing or use-of-force drills or collapsing during high-stakes timed runs on hot days.

Experts and police advocates were surprised by AP’s findings — based on an extensive review of lists of law enforcement deaths in every state, workplace safety records and news reports — and said many of the deaths were preventable. No federal agency or outside organization comprehensively tracks recruit deaths, unlike officers who die in the line of duty.

“Training shouldn’t have one death, much less 29,” said David Jude, a retired Kentucky State Police academy commander and instructor. “To hear that number, it is shocking.”

Black recruits represented nearly 60% of those who died, a striking disparity given that federal data show Black officers make up 12% of local police forces. Many carried sickle cell trait, a condition most prevalent among Black Americans that increases the risk of serious injury following extreme exertion.

Overall, the deaths amount to a tiny percentage of the nation’s 800,000 sworn officers but highlight another hazard in a profession where shootings, car accidents and other dangers are part of the job.

AP’s tally shows the deaths have grown at a time when departments are tapping an older and more diverse pool of applicants to address officer shortages. More than two-thirds of the deaths occurred since 2020.

A ‘heartbreaking’ string of deaths

A Texas recruit collapsed minutes after instructors denied his request for water, saying: “You can’t get water in a fight,” video obtained by AP shows.

An Arkansas cadet died after he was forced to run wearing long pants in the scorching midday sun. A North Carolina trainee’s temperature was 106 degrees an hour after his death, when he had no water breaks during an hourlong obstacle course.

Citing similar cases, one expert warned in a medical journal in mid-2023 of a “troubling spate of exertional collapse and death” of police trainees.

“This sad tragedy is preventable, but will not become so until our police chiefs begin to heed the message,” wrote Dr. Rand