'She had limited value': US cop caught laughing over Indian student's death in video, probe launched

An investigation has been launched against Seattle police union leaders after an officer was recorded on his body camera appearing to joke about an Indian-origin woman who was killed by a police patrol vehicle in January this year, NBC News reported.

On Monday, the Seattle Police Department released footage from Officer Daniel Auderer’s body camera. Auderer left his body camera on after responding to the South Lake Union neighborhood, where a marked patrol vehicle driven by another officer Kevin Dave struck and killed Indian-origin woman Jaahnavi Kandula on January 23, as per the NBC News report.

A day after the incident, it was revealed that Kevin Dave was responding to a high-priority call when he hit the student, who was crossing the street at the time. The victim had travelled from Bengaluru to study at the Northeast University's Seattle campus.

In the footage released by the Seattle Police Department, Auderer, vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, is driving and can be heard discussing details of the accident involving 23-year-old Kandula in a call with the guild’s president Mike Solan.

“But she is dead,” Auderer can be heard saying before bursting out into laughter and calling Kandula "a regular person". In the recording, Auderer suggests that Kandula’s life had “limited value” and the city should “just write a check.”

“Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26 anyway,” Auderer said, inaccurately stating Kandula’s age. “She had limited value.”

The recording, however, did not capture Solan’s remarks.

In a statement Monday, the Seattle Police Department said it learned of the conversation not from Auderer, but from an employee who listened to it “in the routine course of business”, the report further added.

That employee was “concerned about the nature of statements” and took their concerns through their chain of command to the chief’s office.

Jaahnavi Kandula, a native of Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district, was due to graduate this December.  

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