The said police officer, along with another officer named Kevin Dave were in the patrolling car that hit Jaahnvi while she was crossing a street on the night of 23 January, 2023.
Published Jul 18, 2024 | 12:39 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 18, 2024 | 12:39 PM
Jaahnvi Kandula. (X)
The Seattle police fired one of their officer Daniel Auderer, who laughed and made insensitive comments about the death of Indian student Jaahnvi Kandula (23) in January 2023.
The said police officer, along with another officer named Kevin Dave were in the patrolling car that hit Jaahnvi while she was crossing a street on the night of 23 January, 2023. Kevin Dave was driving the patrol vehicle.
Dave was driving at more than 119 kmph on the way to a report of a drug overdose call. Jaahnvi was thrown 100 feet when she was struck by the speeding police patrol vehicle.
However, in February 2024, the King County Prosecutor’s Office said they will not move forward with criminal charges against Kevin Dave.
The Seattle City Attorney had issued a $5,000 traffic infraction against him, according to KomoNews.
In a statement released Wednesday, the King County Prosecuting Attorney said, “Kandula’s death is heartbreaking and impacted communities in King County and across the world.”
According to a Fox13 report, Interim chief Sue Rahr issued an email to the police department.
In the email, the chief noted that at the root of this case lies an extremely difficult judgment call of how to fairly balance “intent versus impact.”
“There is no doubt that the named officer’s cruel comments and callous laughter about the tragic death caused deep pain to Ms Kandula’s family, but also immeasurable damage to the public trust of police in the Seattle community, across the nation, and around the world,” she said in the email.
Further explaining her reasons for reaching the decision, Rahr described the conversation as “private”, and what is considered “gallows humour”, and said, the conversation was “so devastating that it cannot be mitigated by his intent to keep his conversation private.”
Rahr added that it has been “quite striking” to her that a number of people, even those known to be very “pro-police,” feel the “dehumanizing laughter heard on the video is more outrageous and disturbing” than Kandula’s death.
In bodycam footage released by the Seattle Police Department, Officer Daniel Auderer was heard laughing after the deadly crash and had remarked: “Uh, I think she went up on the hood, hit the windshield, and then when he hit the brakes, flew off the car…But she is dead.”
After making these comments, Auderer “laughed hard for four seconds,” the department’s Disciplinary Action Report said.
Auderer’s body-worn camera also captured him saying, “Yeah, just write a check. Just, yeah (laughter). $11,000. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value.”
When asked at an Office of Police Accountability interview about his comments that Kandula had “limited value”, Auderer claimed he was “ridiculing the city attorneys who would be tasked with litigating a potential wrongful death lawsuit.”
Auderer was pulled from patrol in September 2023 and reassigned to a “non-operational position.”
Coming from a middle-class family that resides in the Adoni city of the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, Jaahnvi dreamt of completing postgraduation from the US and supporting her family.
For her family, the news of her demise came as a shock in January. However, the footage released in September, of the Seattle cop humiliating Jaahnvi reopened old wounds.
In September speaking to South First, Jaahnvi’s maternal grandfather Suribabu noted that the surfacing of Auderer’s video was like reliving the loss all over again.
(Edited by Sumavarsha Kandula, with PTI inputs)
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