A San Francisco police recruit died Friday, two days after a medical emergency following a training exercise at the Police Academy, the department said.
It was believed to be the first training death in the Police Department’s history.
Recruit Officer Jon-Marques Psalms, 30, was in the third month of roughly eight months of training when he suffered the emergency Wednesday, the SFPD said in an announcement.
“Medical personnel treated him on site before paramedics took him to the hospital,” police said in a statement. “Unfortunately, he passed away at the hospital on Friday.”
Psalms was one of 55 recruits who started Academy Class 286 on May 9. The training exercise was part of a course required by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the department said.
“The death of a recruit at the academy is incredibly unusual and tragic,” the department said. “This is the first death of a recruit during training that the SFPD is aware of.”
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said the loss of any police officer is a “tragedy,” but that “losing a recruit who had committed himself to this police department and to the safety of our community is especially painful.”
“As I’ve spoken to Recruit Officer Psalms’ parents over the past couple of painful days, they told me about the sense of purpose he found from his work and his squad of fellow recruits,” Lurie said in a statement. “He was so looking forward to graduating with all of them and joining the ranks of the SFPD.”
“The death of a recruit at the academy is incredibly unusual and tragic. This is the first death of a recruit during training that the SFPD is aware of.” San Francisco Police Department statement
Department representatives did not immediately respond to questions about the nature of the medical emergency or the training exercise.
“The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will conduct an investigation and issue a report on the cause of death,” the Police Department said.
The department is conducting its own investigation and the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, is reviewing the incident as a workplace death, police said.
Psalms grew up in Southern California, according to the department. A LinkedIn listing for Psalms said he graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering.
He worked in the tech industry before joining the department, police said.
From February 2016 to June 2017, Psalms volunteered as head golf coach for a Catholic middle school, according to LinkedIn.