A Seattle Police Officer Was Fired for Making Callous Comments About a Woman Who Was Killed by a Police Car
After being fired for a year and a half, a Seattle police officer was caught on camera laughing and saying that a woman’s life had “limited value” after she was killed by another officer’s car.
Officer Daniel Auderer said those things after he arrived at the scene of the death of 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula on January 23, 2023, in a marked police car.
Audrey was called to the scene to check to see if the cop who hit Kandula while she was crossing the street was drunk, according to the police.
The comments Auderer made were heard in a body camera video that came out in September. People were outraged by what he said.
In an email to the whole department on Wednesday, Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr said that Auderer’s words and actions caught on camera had hurt the image of Seattle police.
Rahr wrote, “The officer’s cruel laughter and comments about Ms. Kandula’s life having ‘limited value’ made fun of the sanctity of her life.” “You’ve broken that sacred trust there.” People no longer trust the cop because of what he said, and they no longer trust the Seattle Police Department as a whole.
Rahr wrote in the email that Auderer was “well regarded” and “if not beloved” by many officers and bosses, which was another reason why she was firing him.
“I think his actions are so terrible that his desire to keep our conversation private can’t lessen their effects.” He hurt Ms. Kandula’s family with his words, and they can’t be erased, Rahr said. “What this one police officer did makes the job of every other officer harder because it disgraces the Seattle Police Department and our whole profession.”
No one could get in touch with Auderer on Thursday to give an opinion.
There was also no way to get in touch with the Seattle Police Officers Guild. Audrey was chosen as vice president of the guild, which is made up of about 900 regular officers. Thursday, it wasn’t clear if he still had that job or any other job with the union.
An official report on Auderer’s words says that he accidentally left his body camera on after the fatal crash while talking on the phone with a coworker about what happened.
Video footage showed that the cop whose car hit Kandula was going 50 miles per hour, according to Auderer. A police probe report that was sent to prosecutors for review says that the officer was going 74 mph when Kandula was thrown more than 100 feet.
A trained driver wouldn’t do that, Auderer said in the video. He also said he didn’t think “she was thrown 40 feet either.”
He laughed and said, “But she’s dead.”
He also laughed and said, “Yeah, just write a check.”
“Eleven thousand coins.” Auderer gave Kandula the wrong age by saying, “She was 26 anyway.” “She wasn’t very valuable.”
In the video, only Auderer’s speech could be heard.
Kandula was getting her master’s degree at the Seattle School of Northeastern University when she was killed. No one from her family could be reached for comment Thursday.
The group said Auderer’s words were taken out of context in September and made public a letter he had written to the head of the Office of Police Accountability in August, several months after Kandula’s death.
Auderer wrote in the letter, “I meant the comment as a satire of lawyers—I was imitating what a lawyer negotiating the case would say and being sarcastic to say that they shouldn’t be coming up with crazy arguments to minimize the payment.”
Seattle police gave NBC News a copy of the officer’s disciplinary report on Thursday. It showed that the officer broke a department policy about standards, tasks, and professionalism. According to the story, this was Auderer’s third time breaking that department’s rules.
It also said that Auderer’s statements spread like wildfire and were reported all over the world.
The report said that Auderer noticed his camera was on after saying “limited value” and quickly took his hand off the steering wheel to turn it off.
A police officer told the Office of Police Accountability, “You can either laugh or cry.” Death doesn’t make you laugh. The story said, “You laugh at how silly it is.”
Police say the cop who hit Kandula with his car was on his way to a call about an overdose. The disciplinary report says Auderer decided that the cop who was driving wasn’t drugged or drunk while on duty.
In February, King County prosecutors in Seattle said they would not press charges against the officer because there was not enough proof to show beyond a reasonable question that he was intentionally ignoring safety. The Seattle City Attorney’s Office gave the cop a ticket and a $5,000 fine for careless driving.