ARRESTED FOR KIDNAPPING, ROBBING
Chelsea Police have arrested Jorge Beltran, 18, of Chelsea for Impersonating a Police Officer, Kidnapping and Robbery charges on Monday, March 20. It is believed that Beltran broke into several cars in Everett near the Chelsea line including a Chelsea police captain’s vehicle over the weekend. Several police items were reported missing from the officer’s car, including a police badge and radio.
On Sunday evening, March 19, at approximately 7:20 p.m, a Chelsea resident came into the police station and reported that he was robbed by a male that identified himself as police officer and who displayed a badge. The victim stated he was escorted to a basement of a multifamily home and robbed of his phone and money.
Chelsea investigators were able to obtain video images of Beltran and the victim walking together from city surveillance cameras. At 8:44 a.m. on March 20, two alert Chelsea Officers recognized Beltran from the images they had seen and placed him under arrest and recovered the stolen police badge, police radio and other evidence believed to be linked to other Everett vehicle breaks.
Chelsea and Everett detectives are working together in this on-going investigation.
EVERETT MAN ARRAIGNED IN PEDESTRIAN DEATH
An Everett man was arraigned last week on charges he was driving drunk when he struck and killed 25-year-old Marco Salguero-Cruz in Chelsea last summer and then fled the scene and the country.
Jose Daniel Arevalo, 34, was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident causing death in connection with the June 4, 2016, hit-and-run crash that claimed Salguero-Cruz’s life. At the request of Assistant District Attorney Michael Glennon, Clerk Magistrate Edward Curley set bail at $150,000 and ordered Arevalo to submit to GPS monitoring, home confinement, and surrender his passport in the event he is to be released on bail. Arevalo has remained in custody since he was arrested in Dallas, Texas, on Dec. 1.
According to prosecutors, Salguero-Cruz was struck by a silver Toyota Camry on the night of June 4, 2016, in the area of Washington Street in Chelsea. He died of his injuries at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the operator of the car fled the scene.
State Police detectives assigned to Conley’s office and Chelsea Police detectives recovered images from cameras in the area that captured the vehicle’s path of travel as it exited the parking lot of a Washington Street bar at a high rate of speed, and later as it fled from the area of the crash. Images captured prior to the crash depict the vehicle with two functioning headlights; footage captured immediately after the crash shows the vehicle with only one headlight working.
With the assistance of Conley’s Forensic Multimedia Lab and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Digital Evidence Lab, previously-deleted footage from a private security camera was recovered and enhanced. The resulting images depicting the driver allegedly involved in the crash were then released to the media and the public in November, and a person familiar with Arevalo contacted investigators after recognizing him in the images. Investigators were also able to independently identify Arevalo through witness statements, social media, and Registry of Motor Vehicles records, prosecutors said.
Additional footage depicted Arevalo inside the Washington Street bar consuming four beers and six shots in approximately 2.5 hours leading up to the fatal crash, prosecutors said.
Arevalo allegedly fled to El Salvador two days after the crash but later returned to the United States and was taken into custody in Texas by Texas Rangers acting on a Massachusetts warrant obtained by Chelsea and State police.