Exclusive details: Video, witnesses clear Seattle officer in Jaahnavi Kandula’s death

Dashcam video and witness testimony clear the Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer driving a vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian earlier this year. It likely explains why the officer hasn’t been charged, despite demands from community members and anti-police activists. But that pressure threatens this officer’s future.

UPDATE (2/21/24):

King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion released the following statement Wednesday:

Ms. Kandula’s death is heartbreaking and impacted communities in King County and across the world.

It is the responsibility of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (PAO) to review all available evidence relating to the case involving Seattle Police Officer Kevin Dave and the January 2023 collision death of Jaahnavi Kandula. After staffing this case with senior deputy prosecuting attorneys and office leadership, I have determined that we lack sufficient evidence under Washington State law to prove a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt.

BREAKING: I previously reported that an officer was previously cleared by video evidence and witness testimony in the death of a civilian.

The prosecutor just released a statement saying no charges will be filed.

Background: https://t.co/3zLJuaDiNP

— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) February 21, 2024

The officer was responding to a Priority One overdose call where a 28-year-old man thought he was overdosing. “I did cocaine and I don’t know… I think I’m overdosing,” the man told an emergency operator. Dispatch requested that an officer accompany the medics to respond.

As the officer sped to the overdose call, with his lights flashing and siren chirping, Jaahnavi Kandula can be seen in dashcam video running across the crosswalk, apparently misjudging the officer’s speed. The officer’s vehicle struck Kandula. She was transported to Harborview Medical Center where she was later pronounced dead. She was possibly wearing AirPods at the time of the accident, which means she may not have heard the chirping or the engine howling until she got into the crosswalk.

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Witnesses back the officer

After the accident, the officer started to weep as colleagues hugged him and checked in on him.

“Lights were on, was chirping the siren as I was headed down,” the officer says on bodycam footage obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “She was in the crosswalk, she saw me, she started running through the crosswalk. Slammed on my brakes. Instead of staying back where she should before crossing, she just zips…”

Investigators questioned three witnesses and they were all “similar in nature and no glaring discrepancies between them,” according to the case investigation report. All three confirmed the officer’s lights were flashing and that the siren chirped. Two of the witnesses helped piece together what happened to Kandula.

What witnesses saw — and heard

Witness J.K. said Kandula “didn’t seem to be aware of the car” when she crossed the street, though concedes he did not see how she initially crossed the crosswalk. Witness M.R., however, did. She said she didn’t think either the officer nor Kandula saw each other.

“I heard a siren. I would presume the pedestrian also heard a siren,” she said according to audio of the interview obtained by the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “I observed them (Kandula) beginning to run presumably, to exit the roadway, as they heard a siren approaching. And then I heard a loud thump.

“I observed the pedestrian begin to run as the siren sounded,” she continued.

In a follow-up interview, M.R. told the officer, “I believe the pedestrian likely also heard the siren… and… I saw her like to start to move faster as though like ‘I need to get out of the street, there’s a siren coming,'” she concluded.

Dashcam video backs the officer and witnesses

Investigators reviewed the dashcam footage and confirmed the officer’s lights were flashing and siren chirping.

The report says Kandula, at the time, was wearing black pants and a black jacket with a hood up over her head. This would have made her more difficult to see. Her hood might have blocked peripheral vision, meaning she may not have noticed the flashing lights.

The investigation used frame-by-frame analysis to determine Kandula started to run across the crosswalk when the officer was driving in her direction. The report concludes, “Just before the collision, Kandula transitioned from a walk to a run.” The officer hit the brakes and appeared to quickly turn the steering wheel to avoid collision, but was unsuccessful.

“Kandula was approximately 18.7 feet into the crosswalk. At this position, Kandula was still to the east of the lane of northbound vehicular travel for Dexter Ave N.,” the report states. “Though she was in the roadway, and moving east to west, this position would have allowed vehicles to pass without striking her. At this point, Kandula began to transition to a run to continue her movement westbound…. placing her… in the path of the Ford.”

The report also notes the “possibility that she didn’t have enough time to correctly analyze her position in the roadway to determine if she was in the path or not.”

Evidence points to AirPods

The report noted evidence pointing to Kandula possibly having AirPods on at the time of the collision, “based on the locations and distances from each other that they were found within the scene.”

“Additionally, the position of the portions of both detachable rubber tips that are inserted into the ear being pulled outward indicated that they came out in a manner not consistent with someone casually pulling them out,” the case report states. “It would be expected that if the AirPods were stored in the provided storage case at the time of the collision, the storage case would have been found in the roadway.”

The investigator notes that if she was wearing the headphones with noise cancellation on, “it would have been possible that Kandula’s ability to hear the Ford’s siren and the noise from the engine accelerating would have been diminished.”

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Kandula’s tragic misjudgment

It appears that Kandula was already committed to crossing the street and opted to run across, thinking she could make it. The case report notes that “it can be difficult for humans to judge the speed of objects when they are approaching.”

The investigator concluded that “it is more likely than not that Kandula wasn’t able to accurately estimate the speed of the Ford based on its lights until it got closer to the intersection.”

Kandula’s quick decision to run, tragically, put her in the path of the Ford. Had the officer driven more slowly, she would have made it across the crosswalk, of course. But the officer had discretion on the speed he was driving and he attempted to avoid collision the moment he saw her.

Busting myths from protesters

Anti-cop protesters began to demand the officer be charged months after the incident. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office warned employees on Monday they were expecting protesters in the afternoon, including in the building on the fourth and fifth floors, where their offices are located. About two dozen protesters showed up to protest.

The impetus for the new-found activist interest, in this case, came out of bodycam footage of a separate officer mocking city lawyers who would try to get out of paying Kandula’s family after this tragedy. It also sparked other community interest in the case with unfounded speculation that Kandula was a victim of racist policing or the investigation was delayed because of her ethnicity.

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The police critics, part of the previous Black Lives Matter movement to defund the SPD, complained that the officer was speeding at the time. Indeed, but the officer is legally allowed to speed on the way to an emergency. Generally, we ask law enforcement and medics to rush to get to the scenes of emergency calls. The officer was not driving carelessly, either. He slowed down at each red light he passed, showing concern for others. He just didn’t see Kandula.

There were initial claims that the officer did not have his sirens on, nor lights flashing. But he was clearly chirping his siren, as policy permits, and had his lights on.

Those same critics also said a cop has no business responding to an overdose call. After all, do cops have any expertise during an overdose? Actually, yes — this officer is a certified emergency medical technician. And he was responding to a request to provide assistance. Often, police accompany medics because there’s been a rise in attacks during emergency calls.

Will the prosecutor give in to pressure?

The case report was completed in May. If there were enough evidence to prove any criminal culpability, King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion would have already made a charging decision.

Waiting this long indicates she knows there’s nothing here to reasonably charge where she knows she can get a conviction. Based on the evidence, witnesses, and dashcam video, it appears clear that Kandula made a mistake. You won’t see a vehicular homicide guilty verdict here. It was undoubtedly a tragedy and the officer obviously did not intend to hit Kandula. Had he seen her, he, obviously, would have slowed down like he did when crossing intersections with red lights.

The unfortunate reality is that mistakes happen and they’re sometimes deadly. We expect that officers and medics will rush to emergency calls and that they’ll mitigate any reasonable risks associated with speeding. The officer did that here. We also expect that pedestrians will assess the environment when they hear a chirping car or see flashing police lights. Kandula appears to have erred.

It’s true that if the officer wasn’t speeding, Kandula almost certainly wouldn’t have been hit and killed. But what if this officer not arriving sooner was the reason the overdose call turned fatal or led to a medic being seriously injured? We’re asking officers to make split-second decisions, and then punishing them if an outcome is tragic despite doing what they can to mitigate risks. That is not a tenable position for officers.

The officer should not be charged and I think Manion knows that. But community outrage, particularly amongst the anti-police, Radical Left, could push the prosecutor into the wrong decision. Justice wouldn’t be served; it would just give in to the insatiable anti-police activists desire to jail cops.

The case is being actively reviewed by the Felony Traffic Unit.

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