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.
It’s possible this was her fault, but there are an awful lot of caveats in there. This looks like a kitchen sink of possible excuses. But also, we should have definitive answers to those questions before deciding not to prosecute, shouldn’t we?
“He might not have been at fault.”
“Oh! Case closed.”
Apparently wearing headphones means it’s your fault? Sucks for the hard of hearing.
Deaf? Straight to suicide by cop.
With them saying she tried to run across the road, she likely saw him coming but didn’t realize he was driving 3x the speed limit and would cover a ton of ground in a split second. Prosecutors refusing to charge this as vehicular homicide is a bullshit smokescreen as they should be able to charge him with manslaughter.
The one that makes it sound like the kitchen sink is the headphones, the others pretty clearly paint it as her carelessness, if true. It sounds like she wasn’t really paying attention or looking while crossing the road, saw the car and ran. Meanwhile the officer could have also seen her and tried to avoid, unfortunately running into each other, like two people walking towards each other moving the same way to try and avoid.
The article says “appeared” but I think that’s less of an uncertainty and more the technical language employed, like how a newspaper calls someone “an alleged criminal”. The video itself may be far more clear cut - without seeing that I’d reserve judgement.
74mph in a 25mph sounds excessive, though, especially for a police officer responding to what should be primarily a medical emergency.
Your answer reads the most reasonably here IMO. I have crossed a road at a run to beat an approaching car before, and had I been struck it definitely would’ve been my fault for not practicing proper safety. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. A crappy situation all around, though, and I wish that other cop who made those dumb remarks would face some consequences for being so callous.
I’m with you on this, however, the speed of the cop is an issue. At three times the speed limit, an approaching car would reach you much faster than you would expect it too. This girl may have glanced, seen the cop in the distance, and never realized how fast he was going. Frankly, if an emergency responder if taking an action this far outside the norm, they should also be taking great care because innocent bystanders cannot be expected to anticipate the responders actions.
Police are trained to drive at faster speeds for obvious reasons, but even they need to limit such higher speeds to the same constraint of reaction and vehicle performance times. I’ll be positive and give the benefit of the doubt that he did try to avoid hitting her once he saw her (if he saw her at all), but I can’t imagine anyone being able to react nor slow or swerve in such a setting if it was like most 25 mph zones I know of. People speed through our 25 mph subdivision at 35-40 mph and I’m just waiting for the day someone gets clipped.
I absolutely reserve judgment. It sounds like a brief investigation to come to the conclusion they wanted, but that doesn’t mean that’s the case. It could be just a tragic accident.
It’s obviously an accident. The issue is it was a negligent accident. 75 in a 25 is an insane speed. It’s his job to get to the scene quickly, it’s not his job to endanger the public while doing so.
The fucking military takes more care around foreigners than American cops do around Americans. I’m sick of them getting away with this bullshit. And I’m sick of no one doing any about the intentionally destructive training they get.
Actually not really. There has to be clear evidence of a crime. A bunch of open questions works against prosecuting the case. Remember this would probably eventually end up in a jury trail and you need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
75 in a 25 is insane and negligent homicide in my opinion but it gets tricky since it was a cop with lights and sirens on.
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.
Striking a pedestrian is evidence of a crime, no matter what. A trial is when the evidence is examined to see if the striker was at fault.
I hate the lack of police accountability as much as anyone, but this is literally how our legal system is supposed to work in order to prevent wrongful convictions. That’s what the presumption of innocence for defendants and the requirement for prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are all about.
This wasn’t in a court. This was the DA saying they would not open a case. Innocent until proven guilty applies to court of law, where they look at the evidence to decide if you are guilty.
The goal of a DA is to bring cases to court and get convictions. They’re not going to bring a case where they know in advance that the defense has a winning argument. The only burden of the defense is to create reasonable doubt, so if the DA isn’t certain the potential defendant is criminally liable, it’s reasonable for them to predict any halfway competent defense attorney can create doubt in the minds of jurors. Bringing a case in that scenario would just be grandstanding.
What we really need is to change the law so that the way the cop was driving is a crime in itself unless they’re responding to a live-threatening emergency.
Lol we all know anyone else in this situation gets charged. The DA didn’t charge this shit bag because he’s a cop.
Absolutely not. Trials, the process used to determine guilt, shouldn’t be thrown out just because someone “might” be innocent. Everyone might be innocent. That’s why we investigate and try these cases.
Not to be pedantic but to add, everyone is innocent until otherwise proven, which requires amicable evidence that a crime was committed. At least how this sounds imo its even worse than a “qualified immunity” ruling since it seems as though the killing itself is being disregarded… much like these cops’ sentiment. That is absurd if our courts cant judge at least something wrong was done and make a shitty excuse for it even
It feels like there should be an actual investigation that answers these unknowns. Maybe there has been and this isn’t a great article. It certainly isn’t my intent to necessarily prosecute the cop, but based on the information in this article it leaves me feeling like the investigation was abbreviated.
That doesn’t mean I’m convinced any investigation must necessarily lead to prosecution. I’d just like to know that these questions were answered. Frankly with his lights and siren on and on the way to an urgent call, it seems very likely the guy is not responsible. But that doesn’t mean I want to half-ass the investigation. That’s all. I appreciate and agree with your perspective.