An investigation has been launched following the release of bodycam footage that appears to capture a Seattle police officer making insensitive remarks about a woman who was fatally struck by a patrol car.
Officer Daniel Auderer was responding to an incident in which 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula tragically lost her life near her university.
In the video, the officer can be heard making remarks that suggest the Indian student’s life had “limited value” and that the city should “just write a cheque.”
Officer Auderer has defended his comments, claiming they were taken out of context.
Jaahnavi Kandula, a graduate student at Northeastern University, was struck and killed by a police car while crossing the street on January 23.
According to a police investigation report cited by The Seattle Times, the officer driving the car was traveling at a speed of 74 mph (119 km/h), and the graduate student’s body was thrown more than 100 feet (30 meters).
Officer Auderer was called to the incident, during which his body camera recorded audio from a call he made to a colleague.
“But she is dead,” the officer can be heard saying before laughing. “No, it’s a regular person. Yeah, just write a cheque,” he says, before laughing again.
“Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value.”
Mr. Auderer, a union leader with the Seattle Police Department, was on a call with Mike Solan, the guild’s president. Unfortunately, Mr. Solan’s audio cannot be heard in the recording.
The Seattle Police Department released a statement on Monday, indicating that the conversation was discovered by an employee who listened to it “in the routine course of business.”
The employee expressed concerns about the nature of the statements and escalated those concerns up the chain of command, according to the police statement.
Officials subsequently referred the matter to the Office of Police Accountability, the agency responsible for investigating police misconduct.
The agency is examining “the context in which” the statements were made and whether any policies were violated, according to the Seattle Police Department.
According to Jason Rantz, a conservative talk radio host on KTTH-AM, Officer Auderer provided a written statement in which he explained that his comments were meant to emulate how city attorneys might seek to mitigate liability for the woman’s death.
In his statement, Mr. Auderer stated, “I laughed at the absurdity of how these incidents are legally handled,” as reported by KTTH radio.
The Seattle Community Police Commission, another supervisory body, characterized the footage from the body camera as “heartbreaking and shockingly insensitive.”
Victoria Beach, Chair of the African American Community Advisory Council, expressed her feelings about the incident, stating, “I was shocked, had a multitude of emotions,” and “was deeply disturbed that someone could find humor in the death of another.”
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal assessment of the crash.
