1) This is my 'hood. The Lynnwood courthouse is adjacent to the library where my daughter gets her Ladybug Girl books and across the street from the Fred Meyer where I buy gas. Marie's high school is on my jogging route. It's literally 4 houses away. And although you can't get there directly, it's separated from the Costco where Marie worked by a fence. My wife's godmother has worked at that Costco for about 15 years.

2) Lynnwood cops are renowned for their incompetence and their predatory nature. Lynnwood is largely known for aggressive traffic cameras and a zeal to entrap and prosecute drunk drivers. Otherwise, they're stunningly incompetent; there's a grow house next to my mother-in-law and no amount of bitching about the smell of the chemicals they're using has accomplished fuckall. To get relief my father-in-law, a prize-winning gardener, went over and tuned their system for them.

3) BUT that high school is damn near a reform school. There are a lot of thugs. It's mostly known as the place you go when you get pregnant in high school or threaten a teacher.

4) AND with a foster kid in a public housing project, criminal charges would likely be necessary in order to allow the housing project to move forward with disciplinary action. Which falls back onto the WA state department of social work, which is a sick joke that makes the Lynnwood PD look like those guys from CSI.

5) BECAUSE If they were serious about it they would have taken it to Everett as the Lynnwood municipal court is mostly used for traffic violations. Having been on one (1) date with a girl who falsified a rape claim and was prosecuted, I can vouch for the notion that the cops don't go there lightly. The lovely lady I was out with cut up her own neck with an X-Acto so that she could impugn a spurned love interest, whom the cops not only arrested, they roughed up. Her punishment upon pleading guilty was 20 hours community service and a year of academic probation.