Seattle officer joked about Indian woman killed by police car

A Seattle police officer was recorded laughing about the death of a young Indian woman who was killed after being hit by a police car. 

Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, was struck by police officer Kevin Dave’s car on the morning of Jan. 23. Dave was reportedly responding to an overdose at the time, driving 74 mph in a 25 mph area. Kandula died later that night. 

On Jan. 24, officer Daniel Auderer, vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, was recorded speaking on the phone, allegedly to Mike Solan, president of the guild. 

In the recording, Auderer said there did not appear to be a criminal investigation into Dave’s driving.

“I mean, he’s going 50,” Auderer said. “That’s not out of control, that’s not reckless for a trained driver.”

Solan’s responses cannot be heard on the recording, but Auderer adds, “Initially, he said she was in a crosswalk. There was a witness that says no she wasn’t. But that witness can be different because I don’t think she was thrown 40 feet either.”

The Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) traffic collision investigation squad later reported that Dave struck Kandula at approximately 63 mph, and Kandula was thrown approximately 138 feet. 

When Kandula saw Dave speeding toward her, witnesses said she broke into a run, according to reporting by The Seattle Times. 

In the recording, Auderer was heard saying he thinks Kandula fell on the hood of Dave’s windshield, and when he hit the brakes, she flew off the car. 

“But she is dead,” Auderer said. 

Auderer can then be heard laughing before he said, “Yeah, just write a check. $11,000. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value.”

SPD said in a statement this week that the recording was identified by an employee “who, concerned about the nature of statements heard on that video, appropriately escalated their concerns through their chain of command to the Chief’s Office.”

The chief’s office then sent the video to the city’s Office of Police Accountability “for investigation into the context in which those statements were made and any policy violation that might be implicated.” 

Auderer has since defended his comments.

In conversation with KTTH conservative talk radio host Jason Rantz, Auderer reportedly said, “it would sound really bad without context.”

“The context of what he was responding to, mocking city lawyers trying to get out of paying the family of a young victim, is important,” Rantz tweeted.

Rantz said he had access to the self-report Auderer filed with the Office of Police Accountability following release of the recording. 

In his report, according to Rantz, Auderer wrote, “I do understand that if a citizen were to hear it that they would rightfully believe I was being insensitive to the loss of a human life. I also understand that if I heard it (it) could diminish the trust in the Seattle Police Department and make all of our jobs more difficult. With all that being said, the comment was not made with malice or a hard heart. (It was) quite the opposite.”

“I intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers,” Auderer said, according to reporting by KTTH. “I was imitating what a lawyer tasked with negotiating the case would be saying and being sarcastic to express that they shouldn’t be coming up with crazy arguments to minimize the payment. I laughed at the ridiculousness of how these incidents are litigated and the ridiculousness of how I watched these incidents play out as two parties bargain over a tragedy.”

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is now conducting a criminal review of the crash.

Kandula was meant to graduate in December with a master’s degree in information systems from the Seattle campus of Northeastern University. According to family, she had been working toward supporting her mother in India. 

Her uncle, Ashok Mandula, told The Seattle Times that “the family has nothing to say. Except I wonder if these men’s daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life.”