The two top officials in the Seattle police union were caught on tape with one of them laughing and joking about the death of a woman who was hit by a police car.
Officer Kevin Dave was speeding more than 50 miles over the limit in his Seattle Police Department patrol car without his siren last January when he struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula, a master's student at Northeastern University. Her AirPods were recovered 100 feet down the road. Moments after the collision, Dave is seen on officer-worn bodycam footage speaking to another officer. "She was in the crosswalk; she saw me. She started running through the crosswalk —I slammed on my brakes—instead of staying back where she should." Months later, national outrage is growing in response to another Seattle police officer's comments regarding the incident, also caught on bodycam.
"Initially he said she was in a crosswalk," Officer Daniel Auderer, a responding officer, is heard saying in a video released Monday by the Seattle Police Department. "There's a witness who said 'no she wasn't.' I don't think she was thrown 40 feet. I think she went up on the hood, hit the windshield, then when he hit the brakes, flew off the car."
Auderer was on the phone with Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) President Mike Solan after conducting a sobriety check on Dave. Auderer is the vice president of SPOG.
"But she is dead," said Auderer of Kandula, who moved from Bengaluru, India in 2021.
"Yeah just write a check….11 thousand dollars. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value."
We need your help to stay independent
Auderer's comments have been under investigation by the Seattle Police Accountability Office since Aug. 2. In a written statement, the department said the video "was identified in the routine course of business by a department employee, who, concerned about the nature of statements heard on that video, appropriately escalated their concerns through their chain of command."
The video was released less than a week after a federal judge ruled that a Department of Justice consent decree on the Seattle Police Department could be lifted due to improvements in instances of police brutality. The decade-long decree remains, however, in three areas, including police accountability.
"This video shows exactly why we have more to do on accountability," Joel Merkel, Co-Chair of the Seattle Community Police Commission said. "It seemed like the officer who was joking about this pedestrian's death and minimizing any potential investigation into the officer that struck her as flaunting accountability and that's why we have such a huge problem."
For his part, Auderer claims he was mocking not Kandula but what he assumed would be the response of the City Attorney.
"I intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers. 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," Auderer said in a complaint submitted to the OPA and obtained by conservative commentator Jason Rantz.
"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," he said. "The comment was not made with malice or a hard heart."
Police accountability advocates, however, are not buying it.
"What it says about the police's views on accountability provisions is the joke was ostensibly about lawyers cutting a check and accountability for police officers when they break policy or rules," said Merkel. "He's [Auderer] out there sworn to serve and protect our community and he's joking about a member of our community that just died. It's just awful and heartbreaking and just disgusting."
The Seattle Community Police Commission, a citizen oversight board, released a statement saying that "Seattle deserves better."
"The reported explanation that he was mocking lawyers does not make this unprofessional and inhumane conduct any better because it shows — in what was believed to be a private conversation with SPOG leadership — a callous dismissiveness toward police accountability systems that are at the heart of the City's efforts to reform the Seattle Police Department and come out from under the Consent Decree," the statement said.
"The family has nothing to say," Kandula's uncle, Ashok Mandula, told the Seattle Times. "Except I wonder if these men's daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life."
