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.
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.