Death of Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, from India, ignited outrage after fellow officer was recorded making ‘appalling’ remarks about case
Prosecutors in Washington state said on Wednesday they will not file felony charges against a Seattle police officer who struck and killed a graduate student from India while responding to an overdose call – a case that attracted widespread attention after another officer was recorded making callous remarks about it.
Officer Kevin Dave was driving 74mph (119km/h) on a street with a 25mph (40km/h) speed limit in a police SUV before he hit 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk on 23 January 2023.
In a memo to the Seattle police department on Wednesday, the King county prosecutor’s office noted that Dave had on his emergency lights, that other pedestrians reported hearing his siren, and that Kandula appeared to try to run across the intersection after seeing his vehicle approaching. She might also have been wearing wireless earbuds that could have diminished her hearing, they noted.
For those reasons, a felony charge of vehicular homicide was not warranted. “There is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Dave was consciously disregarding safety,” the memo said.
If this was about to go to trial I agree. But this is about choosing to end the investigation while leaving questions unanswered. We can’t possibly say whether she was wearing earbuds? Were any foumd at the scene? Were they paired to her phone?
Maybe they’ve answered those questions and they just aren’t in the article, but as presented this sounds more like hopeful speculation that maybe she was partly to blame.
Agreed that a cop with lights and sirens on headed to a scene may well not be culpable responding to an urgent situation. I want to be clear that I’m not judging the cop. I just wantal a real investigation done. Could be the cop didn’t do anything wrong by procedure. But it just feels like they didn’t want to find anything wrong, so they did the minimum, invented excuses, and closed the case.