CHELSEA, Massachusetts — Three people were arrested in Salem late on Tuesday night, November 3, 2026, and four guns were seized from their car, after Chelsea police tracked a stolen cell phone from the scene of an armed assault on Chester Avenue through Lynn and into Salem, the Chelsea Police Department said in a statement. Officers had responded about 10:50 p.m. to a report of an assault in the Chester Avenue area, where, according to the department, the victim had been pistol-whipped by three people, all of them armed, who left in a newer gray Honda Accord — taking the victim's cell phone with them. That phone became the thread that led police across three cities before the night was out.
Chelsea police identified two of the three arrested as Carlos Ruben Palencia, 20, of Lawrence, and Fermin Franklin Juarez, 19, of Lynn. The third is a juvenile male from Lynn, whom police did not name. All three were arraigned in Salem District Court on multiple firearms charges, the department said. The charges are allegations: the police statement does not list the individual charges against each person, does not say whether any charge has been filed over the assault itself, and all three are presumed innocent unless the government proves the charges in court.
A phone tracked across three cities
Chelsea officers tracked the stolen phone as it left the city, moved into Lynn and then into Salem, police said, and during the investigation they also learned the Honda's licence plate. Officers passed the phone's live location to Chelsea dispatchers, who relayed it to Lynn police, Salem police and the Massachusetts State Police. Salem police found the car moving through their city and stopped it, with State Police assisting. Officers seized four firearms and ammunition from the car and arrested the driver and the two passengers, according to the statement. The Honda was later towed to Chelsea police headquarters.
What police say they seized
The seizure list is the detail that lifts this case beyond a routine arrest. Police said the four firearms were a .40-calibre Glock 22 fitted with a machine-gun conversion kit, a 3D-printed 9mm “ghost gun,” a .380-calibre Taurus PT 738, and a 9mm Glock 19 fitted with a red dot optic — along with a 50-round drum magazine and numerous rounds of ammunition. A conversion kit of the kind described — often called a switch — is a small device that converts a semi-automatic pistol into a fully automatic weapon, and such devices are treated as machine guns under federal law. A ghost gun is a privately made firearm, in this case 3D-printed, built without the serial number that lets investigators trace a gun's history. Finding both in one car, alongside a high-capacity drum magazine, is the combination that Massachusetts and federal prosecutors treat as the most serious end of illegal-gun cases.
“My guys did an amazing job acting quickly and tracking the phone the way they did as any delay could have given the suspects time to get away or discard the phone,” Chelsea Police Chief Keith E. Houghton said in the statement, crediting Salem police and the State Police with finding the car. “Most importantly the victim did not suffer any life-threatening injuries and no officers were hurt during this highly dangerous investigation,” Houghton said.
Chelsea sits directly across the Mystic River from Boston, next to Logan Airport and the Route 1 and I-93 freight and logistics corridors where many Punjabi truckers and warehouse workers in New England earn their living, and it is one of the most heavily immigrant cities in Massachusetts. A pistol-whipping on a residential street, a car carrying a machine-gun conversion and an untraceable ghost gun, and a police track that crossed three city lines in a single night are exactly the kind of neighbourhood-level safety story that diaspora families in the Boston area live with — and this case also shows the practical fact that a stolen phone, left switched on, can lead four police agencies to a car within hours.
What is not yet known
The department did not release the victim's name or age, did not describe what led to the Chester Avenue assault, and did not give the bail status of the three people arrested. The public statement does not list the individual firearms charges each defendant faces, and it does not say whether prosecutors will file charges over the pistol-whipping itself or over the taking of the phone. Whether the seized guns are connected to any other incident is also not addressed in the statement; the Honda's tow to Chelsea police headquarters suggests investigators intend to examine the car further.
What happens next
The three defendants have been arraigned in Salem District Court on multiple firearms charges, and their cases now move through the Massachusetts district court process, where prosecutors must set out the specific counts — which, on the police account, arise from the four seized firearms, the conversion kit, the ghost gun and the drum magazine. The assault investigation in Chelsea remains with the Chelsea Police Department, which is the agency that issued the account of the night's events. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the individual charges and bail conditions are made public or when police release what led to the Chester Avenue assault.