A traffic stop on Springfield's Bay Street ended with a loaded, large-capacity ghost gun, heroin, and suspected fentanyl-laced cocaine pulled from a vehicle carrying a 19-year-old driver and five teenagers. Police arrested all six occupants, including juveniles as young as 14, after the car was flagged for having no valid inspection sticker.
According to the Springfield Police Department, officers first responded to a ShotSpotter activation in the 0-100 block of Kenyon Street on August 1 before observing a group of subjects enter a vehicle nearby. That vehicle was later stopped in the 500 block of Bay Street, where officers noted it lacked a valid inspection sticker. A search of the car turned up a firearm along with narcotics, prompting the arrest of all six people inside.
The driver was identified as 19-year-old Yariel Fernandez of Springfield, who now faces charges of carrying a firearm without a license, possession of a firearm without a serial number, and improper storage of a firearm, the department said. The five juvenile passengers — one 14-year-old, two 15-year-olds, a 16-year-old, and a 17-year-old — were also placed under arrest, but their names and specific charges will not be released because of their ages.
What Was Recovered From the Car
Officers recovered a large-capacity ghost gun loaded with 20 rounds of ammunition, though the weapon was capable of holding up to 32 rounds, per the department's account. Alongside the firearm, officers found four bags of heroin and suspected cocaine laced with fentanyl inside the vehicle.
The withholding of the juveniles' identities and charge details reflects Massachusetts juvenile privacy law, which bars police and court officials from publicly releasing names, mugshots, or charge breakdowns for arrestees under 18, according to Mass.gov. The law is meant to shield minors from public criminal records while their cases move through juvenile court.
Steep Penalties Await the Adult Driver
Fernandez's exposure under state law is significant. Carrying a firearm outside one's home or business without a valid License to Carry triggers an absolute mandatory minimum sentence of 18 months in a house of correction or state prison under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 269, Section 10(a) — a minimum that cannot be suspended or reduced by a judge, per Mass.gov. First offenses can carry maximum sentences of up to five years in state prison.
Separately, possessing an untraceable firearm without a serial number is a felony under the same statute, punishable by up to 10 years in state prison. The improper storage charge stems from Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 140, Section 131L, which requires firearms to be secured in a locked container or fitted with a tamper-resistant lock whenever they are not under the direct control of their owner — a rule that holds drivers strictly liable when a weapon is accessible to unauthorized occupants, including minors, inside a vehicle.
Part of a Larger Pattern of Ghost Gun Seizures
Massachusetts overhauled its firearm statutes in October 2024, when Governor Maura Healey signed Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024, explicitly criminalizing the possession, manufacture, and transfer of untraceable ghost guns and mandating electronic serialization for firearm frames and receivers. The law closed loopholes tied to kit guns and extended licensing standards to long-gun components.
This is not an isolated find for Springfield. Just two days before the Bay Street stop, officers arrested a 21-year-old on Locust Street and recovered a loaded ghost gun fitted with a sear-selector switch converting it to fully automatic fire, along with a 50-round drum magazine and crack cocaine, the department said. The Springfield Police Department's Firearms Investigation Unit, formed in July 2021 to target illegal firearm possession, recovered a record 164 illegal firearms in 2025 — its highest single-year total in five years — and by July 2026 had confiscated 712 illegal firearms cumulatively since its founding.
Ghost Guns Are a Growing Slice of Statewide Seizures
A 2022 crime gun report from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security found that ghost guns and privately made firearms accounted for 164 recovered crime weapons, or 6.8 percent of total state seizures, reported to the Commonwealth Fusion Center, with broader keyword searches suggesting at least 316 related weapons statewide. Roughly 75 percent of all crime guns recovered statewide that year were tied directly to a criminal arrest.
The Kenyon Street ShotSpotter activation that preceded the arrest underscores how much gunfire in Springfield may otherwise go unreported. Springfield Police spokesperson Ryan Walsh has said that in 70 percent of cases where officers respond to a ShotSpotter alert and find evidence at the scene, the department had received no 911 calls about the gunfire, according to GBH News. Springfield has used the acoustic sensor technology across roughly six square miles of high-crime areas since 2008 to speed up response times.
It remains unclear whether the ghost gun recovered on Bay Street was manufactured from a 3D-printed design or an imported kit, and whether ballistic testing will link the weapon to the original Kenyon Street gunfire that first drew officers to the area. The Hampden County District Attorney's Office has not indicated how it plans to proceed against the five juvenile suspects in juvenile court.
