The light came from a laser sight on a handgun aimed at the group from inside a vehicle on Shurtleff Street, so one of the teens approached the car and asked “What’s up?” the document said.

“The six young males took note that there was a red laser pointed at them,” said a legal filing made public Monday in Suffolk Superior Court.

Six teenagers were talking on a Chelsea street one Friday evening last year when they noticed something unsettling.

The car continued driving toward the end of the street, and then, prosecutors allege, Juan Carlos Matos Figueroa exited the vehicle and fired at least nine shots at the group, fatally striking 15-year-old Jimmy Vasquez in the abdomen and wounding another teen in the foot.


On Monday, the heavyset Figueroa stood handcuffed in a dark-colored Nike jacket, partially hidden behind a doorway in the courthouse. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder for the slaying of Vasquez on Jan. 13, 2017.

Figueroa, of Somerville, also pleaded not guilty to a number of gun-related charges and was held without bail.

Prosecutors allege that he was driven to the scene with enough firepower to easily take out all six unarmed youngsters, who ranged in age from 15 to 18. The handgun — a Glock, authorities said — was equipped with a the laser and a 30-clip magazine, and another man helped Figueroa dump it after the killing, according to authorities.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco. Firearms and Explosives, as well as Chelsea and State Police, recovered the weapon used in the killing in June, according to the government’s statement of the case.

The legal filing didn’t say where or how investigators found the weapon.

Assistant District Attorney Stacey Pichardo did not disclose a motive for the attack during the arraignment, nor did she say whether Vasquez was the intended target of the gunfire.


His family watched calmly as Pichardo laid out the allegations. Relatives of Figueroa also attended the hearing, and court officers stood between the two families.

Figueroa’s lawyer, Robert Griffin, did not address the allegations in court and declined to discuss the case afterward.

Asked how his client was faring, Griffin said, “How’s anybody doing when they’ve been charged with first-degree murder?”

A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

District Attorney Daniel F. Conley has previously described Vasquez as “an innocent young man doing what kids his age have always done — hanging out with his friends on a Friday evening.”

Figueroa is due back in court in May for a pretrial conference.

Vasquez’s older sister, Yuly Vasquez, told the Globe shortly after her sibling’s death that she thought the “people he was hanging out with were probably in a gang. . . . Wrong place, wrong time. That’s what they’re saying right now.”

In a statement, Conley’s office said investigators “undertook witness interviews, retrieved video footage from cameras in the area, and collected physical evidence that included shell casings recovered at the scene.”

Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes told the Globe soon after the killing that Jimmy Vasquez “wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“He was just hanging out with his buddies,” Kyes said. “My heart goes out to his family.”

Laura Crimaldi of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Jacob Carozza and Jacob Geanous contributed to this report. Travis Andersen

can be reached at tandersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.