The 23-year-old was a master’s student at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus.
An investigation has been launched against Seattle police union leaders after an officer was recorded on his body camera laughing and joking about an Indian-origin woman who was killed by a police patrol vehicle in January this year, the New York Post reported.
In the video released on Monday, Officer Daniel Auderer can be heard discussing the investigation into the accident involving graduate student Jaahnavi Kandula, who was killed by his colleague, Officer Kevin Dave, on January 23. The 23-year-old was a master’s student at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus.
In the clip, Seattle Police Officers’ Guild Vice President Daniel Auderer, in a call with the guild’s president, can be heard saying, “She is dead” before bursting out into laughter and calling Ms. Kandula “a regular person”. He further said, through bursts of laughter, “Yeah, just write a check. Eleven thousand dollars.”
The clip ends with him saying: “She was 26 anyway, she had limited value”, getting her age wrong.
Here’s the footage:
The Seattle Community Police Commission (CPC) issued a statement Monday following the release of the video, calling the conversation between Mr Auderer and his colleague, “heartbreaking and shockingly insensitive.”
”The people of Seattle deserve better from a police department that is charged with fostering trust with the community and ensuring public safety,” the CPC added.
Meanwhile, the Seattle police department, which released the video “in the interest of transparency,” said it would not comment on the matter until the Police Accountability Office concludes its investigation into the incident.
Notably, Ms. Kandula, a native of the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, died after being struck by a Seattle police patrol vehicle in South Lake Union. The Seattle police department in a statement said that the officer driving the marked patrol SUV was travelling northbound on Dexter Avenue North when responding with Seattle Fire Department to a “priority one call.” The female pedestrian was crossing from east to west in the crosswalk when the vehicle hit her, according to the statement.
Initially, Auderer reported the officer was driving his car at 50 MPH and was not ”out of control”. However, later, the police investigation found that the car was at 74 MPH when it hit Ms Kandula. According to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, the cause of death was multiple blunt-force injuries.
Jaahnavi Kandula was a student at the Northeastern University campus in South Lake Union and was on track to receive a master’s degree in information systems this December.
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