Metropolis Desk-
A police officer was caught on his body camera smiling and joking about an Indian-origin lady who was killed by a police patrol car in January of this year, according to the New York Post. Leaders of the Seattle police union are now the subject of an investigation.
The accident involving graduate student Jaahnavi Kandula, who was killed by his colleague, Officer Kevin Dave, on January 23, is discussed by Officer Daniel Auderer in the video that was made public on Monday. At Northeastern University’s Seattle campus, the 23-year-old was a master’s student.
In the video, the vice president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild, Daniel Auderer, can be heard saying, “She is dead,” before laughing and referring to Ms. Kandula as “a regular person,” during a call with the guild’s president. Through fits of laughing, he continued, “Yeah, just write a check. A million and one dollars.
He misstates her age by saying: “She was 26 anyway, she had limited value” as the clip comes to a close.
Following the publication of the video, the Seattle Community Police Commission (CPC) released a statement in which they referred to the exchange between Mr. Auderer and his colleague as “heartbreaking and shockingly insensitive.”
The CPC continued, “The people of Seattle deserve better from a police department that is charged with cultivating community trust and ensuring public safety.”
The Police Accountability Office’s investigation into the event is still ongoing, but the Seattle police department, which released the footage “in the interest of transparency,” said it would not comment until then.
Notably, Ms. Kandula, an Andhra Pradesh native from the Kurnool area, passed away in South Lake Union after being struck by a Seattle police patrol car. According to a statement from the Seattle Police Department, the officer operating the marked patrol SUV was traveling north on Dexter Avenue North when the Seattle Fire Department and they were called to a “priority one call.” According to the statement, the pedestrian was struck by the car as she crossed the street from east to west.
Initially, Auderer said the cop was not “out of control” and was driving his car at 50 miles per hour. Later, the police investigation discovered that the vehicle was traveling at 74 MPH when it struck Ms. Kandula. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that several blunt-force injuries were the cause of death.
Jaahnavi Kandula was enrolled at the South Lake Union campus of Northeastern University and was scheduled to graduate with a master’s in information systems in December.
Source- NDTV
