EVERETT — The 14-year-old stabbed numerous times and left to die in Lions Park last month was set up. Classmates from Lakewood High did the hit. One hailed from a rival gang.
Prosecutors are charging two 17-year-old boys as adults for the torturous Dec. 17 attack. Milo Canales had his initial arraignment Dec. 23; the other boy is scheduled to have his Jan. 6.
Both pistol-whipped, beat and stomped the 14-year-old for the 20-minute attack. Canales, who stabbed the victim, had him take his clothes off and tied the boy up to a tree. It’s believed the other one filmed it. The Tribune is not naming the other boy because he has not been formally charged in court through arraignment.
The 14-year-old received traumatic injuries. If he hadn’t sought help, doctors think he would have died, prosecutors wrote. He was taken to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett first, then to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
When the boy thought he could get away, now around 1:30 a.m., he fled naked to the nearest house and begged the homeowner for help.
One had a loaded gun, but they didn’t shoot because this was to torture their target. Make him pay. He’d insulted one of their sisters.
The set up went like this: A girl from school who the 14-year-old was chatting with on Instagram and Snapchat would pick him up in her car. The intent was to go to the park afterhours to smoke marijuana.
The 14-year-old is in the South Side Locos gang, part of the Sureños network.
Canales is in the Norteños gang.
At the park, as soon as he went around to her driver’s side door, his attackers ran up, grabbed him and pulled guns to quell him. The girl immediately drove off, like how the plan was designed.
Lions Park, 7530 Cascade Dr., is considered safe Sureños territory, prosecutors wrote. The 14-year-old had tagged the park in months past to hype the South Side Locos 13, he acknowledged to police.
During the attack, Canales carved an “N” into the boy’s chest, presumably for the Norteños, according to prosecutors.
Why him? He’d tried to confront one of the two 17-year-olds a few weeks prior, prosecutors wrote. He and Canales are friends. The 17-year-old being confronted declined to fight at the time, but was unhappy with it, prosecutors wrote.
“This is what you get for acting tough,” the same 17-year-old told the victim, prosecutors wrote.
Police arrested Canales in Marysville and the other one in Tulalip.
Prosecutors want to charge both with first-degree assault, first-degree robbery with a firearm and first-degree kidnapping. The robbery charge is because they took the boy’s shoes and phone while brandishing guns.
Canales’ rap sheet has been growing. In mid-November, he had been arrested for a robbery in Seattle involving multiple people.
