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Four students and a security guard were stabbed inside Tacoma’s Foss High School on April 30, and Pierce County Judge Jennifer Andrews released the accused attacker on just $250 bail. For less than a parking ticket or a decent pair of sneakers, you too can be released on light bail for an alleged mass stabbing. The original bail was set at $750,000, but that apparently sent the wrong message to a judge who doesn’t care much about public safety.

Waleed Essakhi, 16, is charged as an adult with four counts of first-degree assault with a deadly weapon enhancement after he allegedly pulled a pocket knife during a fight prosecutors say started over a stolen vape pen. Several victims were critically injured before they stabilized. Just last month, prosecutors called him a threat to the community. Now he’s home on electronic monitoring after his family presumably dug through the couch cushions for the bail.

Judge Andrews was appointed to the bench by then-Governor Jay Inslee in 2021, before being elected to the bench. The appointment gave her a

This is what Washington’s judicial culture produces, and it should alarm every parent in Tacoma.

Essakhi’s attorneys cited new evidence supporting a self-defense claim, alleging four students encircled and jumped him before he drew the knife. If that holds up, a jury can and should weigh it. That’s what trials are for. And during the trial, we’ll learn more about this troubled kids’ past behaviors.

But a bail hearing is not a trial, and a judge dropping bail by three-quarters of a million dollars functionally pre-judged the case before a single juror was seated. Court documents obtained by KIRO Newsradio and MyNorthwest note Essakhi transferred to Foss in January after fights at his previous school in Lakewood, where he reportedly swung a belt at other students.

Whatever the self-defense evidence shows, this was not a kid with a spotless record of de-escalation, and five people ended up in the hospital. A $250 figure doesn’t reflect careful risk assessment; it reflects a court that has already decided the charges don’t matter, apparently moved by the argument that Essakhi has a family structure that will keep an eye on him. They failed to keep an eye on him prior to the alleged mass stabbing but this time, they’ll properly parent him.

This isn’t an isolated lapse, and it’s not just in Pierce County.

A Pierce County judge previously released a mother accused of raping her 2-year-old son on video without bail, hiding behind the state’s presumption of release. Seattle Police Officers Guild President Kent Loux has warned that judges and prosecutors releasing dangerous suspects is exactly why the region can’t get crime under control, and Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Spokane) is pushing federal legislation to expose jurisdictions that release violent suspects for next to nothing.

Think about the message sent to the four students still recovering from knife wounds, and to every kid who walks through those doors in September. The system weighed their trauma against $250 and called it even. Maybe Essakhi acted in self-defense; a jury will decide. But until it does, Washington judges keep gambling with public safety, and the house never pays when they lose.

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