Blue city judge slammed for releasing violent suspect arrested again for vicious attack on teen
Seattle Judge Veronica Galván's decision to release an armed robbery suspect who went on to allegedly disembowel a teenager – and a bevy of similar progressive decisions on the bench – make her "effectively as dangerous as the violent suspects she chooses to keep out on the streets," talk show host Jason Rantz told Fox News Digital.
Millorz J. Canales, a 17-year-old reputed member of the Norteño gang, was charged with assault, kidnapping and robbery on Dec. 17. Canales and an accomplice allegedly lured a 14-year-old to Lions Park in Everett, KOMO News reported.
The victim, who later admitted to police his association with the rival South Side Locos, was left to die after he was tied to a tree, stripped nude, stabbed eight times, carved with the letter "N" and disemboweled, according to the Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney's office. The 20-minute-long attack was caught on surveillance footage, according to the office.
The victim survived and ran to a nearby home for help.
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Police quickly identified Canales as the prime suspect in the attack. Police found a blood-soaked sweatshirt and bloodied green boxers when he was arrested by Everett Police, KTTH reported.
Weeks earlier, on Nov. 15, Canales was arrested for an alleged gang-related armed robbery in Seattle. He was released without bail on Dec. 2 by Galvan despite objections from the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and was awaiting trial when he allegedly mutilated the 14-year-old.
"Please understand the Rules of Ethics prohibit the Court from commenting on any specific case. If you would like, you may request a copy of the recordings of the hearings via the Clerk’s Office," Galvan's bailiff, Sonam Lata, told Fox News Digital.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office could not immediately be reached for comment.
"She does not believe, especially when it comes to youth offenders, that jail works. It's not a disincentive. It doesn't change behaviors," Rantz told Fox News Digital. "The problem, of course, is that it can't just be seen through the lens of wanting to reform. It's also about protecting the public every single day that someone who's dangerous isn't behind bars where they belong is another day when they can commit a felony and create another victim.
"And unfortunately, with this judge, we're seeing that happen over and over and over again with the folks that have stood before her and gotten a slap on the wrist, if that," Rantz continued.
Earlier in 2024, Galvan released 12- and 13-year-old brothers accused of stealing a car using a ghost gun and leading police on a high-speed chase, Fox 13 reported.
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In July, she released three teens on electronic home monitoring after they allegedly menaced paradegoers with loaded guns modified to be automatic. Prosecutors argued that the teens should be held behind bars for the safety of the community, KOMO News reported. However, Galvan said she wanted to see if the teens could turn things around through community support programs.
"We’ve detained people for years, years, and crime is still here. Children are still committing inappropriate things, we still have behaviors that are concerning," she said, according to the outlet. "This is going to take a lot more than just throwing people in and locking them up without a key."
Rantz said that Galvan's behavior on the bench is "a perfect example of what happens when you take your ideology, and you make it a part of your job, where you view decisions you make through a very specific social, justice focused ideological lens."
Moreover, he said, Galvan is not the only soft-on-crime judge to regularly release suspects who have gone on to commit more grievous offenses.
"I have a basic rule on my radio show that when covering any of these kinds of stories: if I remember the name of the judge, it's almost never for the right reasons," Rantz said. "It's always because of the soft on crime policies that they've enforced and have adopted. And I recognize a lot of the names of judges. Unfortunately, that's because a lot of these judges are making boneheaded, dangerous decisions that are putting dangerous people back out on the streets."
"It's not just about Veronica Galvan. I could have probably written a similar story on a number of judges, dozens of judges across the state. She just happened to be on a very high profile case that caught my attention," Rantz said.
Both Seattle and Washington state have been "living the consequences" of progressive court rulings," he said.
"A lot of the judges we have and a lot of the prosecutors we have in the state have really adopted this position of wanting to dismantle the criminal justice system and then rebuilding it through this very specific ideological lens – we saw it in the most obvious ways during the BLM movement of 2020 into 2021, where they were quite literally using the language, dismantling the criminal justice system and rebuilding it," Rantz said.
"We've seen policies and laws that have been changed that have specifically tried to do that, to create a system in which justice is not in fact blind," he continued. "That based on one's identity as a defendant, they get treated in a different way, more positively for them, negatively for the victim. That's the unfortunate reality that we have… Washington state has been infected with this sort of woke think for a very long time now."
Galvan was appointed to her position by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in 2014. Since then, she has repeatedly run unopposed for re-election.
"We have a problem in King County, in particular in Seattle, where we've got a lot of these open positions that ultimately get filled because of an appointment by a Democrat governor. And then no one steps up to challenge. It's a failure, I think, on the part… of the local Republican Party," Rantz said. "You're either going to try to get the best of the best to step up and run for these positions, or you're going to continue to see what we've been seeing, which is just ceding all of this power to radicals."