“She had limited value,” US cop’s shocking remarks revealed in a video, over the death of Indian student

India calls for action after video shows US cop laughing over Andhra Pradesh student’s death

Our Bureau

Seattle, Washington

Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student of Northeastern University campus in South Lake Union, was walking near Dexter Avenue North and Thomas Street when she was hit by a Seattle Police vehicle driven by Kevin Dave on January 23.

Now an officer from Seattle Police Department has been under investigation after a newly-released bodycam footage showed him laughing and joking on a phone call about an Indian student who was hit and killed by a patrol car driven by a fellow cop.

In the brief clip, Seattle Police Officers’ Guild vice president Daniel Auderer is seen driving and can be heard saying, “she had limited value”, in a call with the guild’s president, Mike Solan, KIRO 7 news channel reported on Wednesday.

Shortly after saying “she’s dead”, Auderer laughs and says “it’s a regular person”, referring to Kandula. He then says “just write a cheque — $11,000, she was 26 anyway, she had limited value”.

The SPD said in a statement released on Monday that the video of Auderer’s call ‘was identified in the routine course of business by a department employee’ and was escalated to Chief Adrian Diaz.

Following the chain of command, the employee then escalated it to the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) for a review, the statement added.

Following the news of this video, India said it has “strongly” taken up the case of its national Jaahnavi Kandula with authorities in the US, following the release of a bodycam video in which a cop is heard joking and laughing about the Indian student’s death by a police patrol car this year.

The Consulate General of India in San Francisco on Wednesday termed the incident as “deeply troubling”.

Kandula first travelled to the US in 2021 from Adoni in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district.