Seattle officer fired for ‘cruel comments and callous laughter’ following Indian grad student’s death, police chief says

By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN

(CNN) — A Seattle police officer has been fired over the “dehumanizing laughter” and “cruel comments” he made after the 2023 death of an Indian graduate student who was struck by a police vehicle, the police chief says.

Seattle interim Police Chief Sue Rahr terminated former officer Daniel Auderer on Wednesday and justified her decision to the department in an internal email, attaching the department’s disciplinary action report alongside it.

“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,” Rahr wrote in the internal memo, noting many in the community said Auderer’s “dehumanizing laughter” heard on video was “more outrageous and disturbing” even than Kandula’s death.

“It is my duty as the leader of this organization to uphold the high standards necessary to maintain public trust,” Rahr wrote. “For me to allow the officer to remain on our force would only bring further dishonor to the entire department.”

On January 23, 2023, Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old graduate student from Andhra Pradesh, India, was fatally struck by Seattle Police Officer Kevin Dave’s police patrol vehicle while she on a crosswalk. Eight months after the incident, police released body-worn police camera footage that captured a phone conversation in which Auderer, the day after he was sent to the scene to examine if the officer whose vehicle hit her had been impaired, can be heard laughing, saying Kandula’s life had “limited value.”

“But she is dead,” Auderer says on the body-worn camera footage, apparently in response to the person on the phone.

“No, it’s a regular person,” Auderer then says. Moments later, he replies: “Yeah, just write a check” and laughs.

“Yeah, $11,000. She was 26 anyway,” he adds, mistaking Kandula’s age. “She had limited value.”

CNN has reached out to Auderer for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The video’s release last year sparked outrage across the nation, especially within the South Asian diaspora – inspiring rallies, meetings with elected officials and online petitions demanding justice for Kandula. It also grabbed the attention of onscreen celebrities like Priyanka Chopra, Farhan Akhtar and Lilly Singh, who posted online about her death.

Auderer, who is also vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, “intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers,” he wrote in an August 8 letter to the city’s Office of Police Accountability released by the Seattle Police Officers Guild. “I was imitating what a lawyer tasked with negotiating the case would be saying and being sarcastic to express that they shouldn’t be coming up with crazy arguments to minimize the payment.”

CNN has reached out to the Seattle Police Officers Guild for comment.

“I believe the impact of his actions is so devastating that it cannot be mitigated by his intent to keep his conversation private,” Rahr wrote in her email to the police department. “The hurt his words have inflicted on Ms. Kandula’s family cannot be erased.”

“The actions (of) this individual police officer have brought shame on the Seattle Police Department and our entire profession, making the job of every police officer more difficult,” she continued.

The body-worn camera footage was provided to the King County Prosecutor’s Office as part of the fatality case, according to Rahr. The office announced in February it would not file criminal charges against Dave – whose patrol vehicle struck Kandula – saying it “lacks sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Kevin Dave was impaired by drugs or alcohol, driving in a reckless manner, or driving with disregard for the safety of others.”

The city’s Office of Police Accountability recommended in January that Auderer be terminated following an investigation that found the officer violated the department’s standards and duties policy and bias-free policing policy, a spokesperson told CNN.

Kandula was from the Kurnool District in Andhra Pradesh and spoke Telugu, the president of the Telugu Association of North America, Niranjan Srungavarapu, previously told CNN. The group helped return her remains to India in January, he said.

She had come to the United States in 2021 to pursue a master’s degree in information systems in the College of Engineering at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus, according to the school. She would have graduated in December.

“Jaahnavi, a young soul full of dreams and hopes, came to the United States with the aspiration to pursue her master’s degree and be a beacon of support for her family,” the association said in a statement to its Seattle community and members. “Her future was a shining light, cruelly extinguished.”

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