More than 200 people gathered for a rally to demand the immediate dismissal of Officer Kevin Dave, who killed Jaahnavi Kandula, and Officer Daniel Auderer, who laughed about it. Credit: STREETPHOTOJOURNALISM

On Wednesday, King County Prosecutors announced their decision not to bring charges against Seattle Police Officer Kevin Dave, who struck and killed 23-year-old college student Jaahnavi Kandula while she crossed in a crosswalk in January 2023. Dave remained on duty with the department, and the administrative investigation into his conduct paused while prosecutors reviewed whether he should face criminal charges. The Office of Police Accountability must now complete its investigation into whether Dave violated any department policies when he hit Kandula, and whether his actions amounted to a fireable offense.

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) brought in an outside firm, ACES, Inc., to review the case materials involving Dave’s hitting of Kandula, which reviewed the Seattle Police Department’s investigation. The ACES report found nothing wrong with SPD Detective Brett Shoenberg’s investigation, which said that the case did not did not turn up enough evidence for prosecutors to prove felony charges against Dave beyond a reasonable doubt. Amy Freedheim, head of the KCPAO’s Felony Traffic Unit, said that to prove a charge of vehicular homicide the office would need to show that Dave “consciously” drove with “reckless disregard for the safety of others.” 

Dave hit Kandula on January 23, 2023 as she crossed in a crosswalk at the intersection of Dexter Avenue North and Thomas Street in South Lake Union. The impact caused her to fall unconscious, and responders took her to Harborview Medical Center, where she later died. Dave hit Kandula while traveling at about 63 miles per hour, and in the seconds before Dave saw her, his speeds reached up to 74 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone. SPD’s investigative report shows Dave attempting to brake a second before hitting her. Investigators determined that had Dave driven at a speed of 50 miles per hour, he could have avoided hitting her. After hitting Kandula, Dave called for emergency services and began CPR.

In a statement released to the public after Kandula’s death, SPD Chief Adrian Diaz said that Dave was heading to a Priority 1 overdose call at the time. Investigative reports show that a man called 911 to say he’d taken too much cocaine. The apartment where the man called from was about an eight-minute drive from the West Precinct. The KCPAO said Wednesday that SPD dispatch told Dave that the man was on the phone with 911 and waiting outside to speak with police, somewhat undercutting the seriousness of the call.

Prior to the collision, Dave had his patrol car’s emergency lights activated, but he did not have his police sirens continuously running. When approaching intersections and red lights he “chirped” his sirens, meaning he turned them on for a couple seconds, according to the memo from the KCPAO. Less than a second before he hit Kandula, Dave chirped his sirens again.

The KCPAO’s Freedheim acknowledged that some could argue that Dave’s speed, plus his decision not to continuously run his sirens might have amounted to negligence, but that negligent driving does not amount to felony criminal charges under Washington State law. 

Freedheim also pointed out that two schools of thought exist when it comes to sirens, and some police officers prefer to chirp sirens as a way to call attention to the emergency vehicle. She added that a defense attorney might argue that Kandula had headphones in, making it harder for her to hear the police siren’s chirp. Freedheim also pointed out that video footage showed her safely in a non-travel lane of the crosswalk when she noticed Dave’s patrol car, and she appears to make a split-second decision to run across the street. Under Washington State Law, a defense attorney could argue that her decision to run across the street caused the accident, Freedheim said. However, in the SPD investigation the detective noted that Kandula likely did not have enough time to properly analyze whether she was in the path of the car and how fast it was traveling. 

King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion met with several members of Kandula’s family Wednesday to inform them of the office’s decision, and she plans to schedule a follow-up meeting to speak with Kandula’s mother, who lives in India. Manion released a statement calling Kandula’s death “heartbreaking.” 

She also stressed that her decision has nothing to do with the “appalling and deeply troubling” comments made by Seattle police union vice president Daniel Auderer. Body camera footage captured Auderer laughing about Kandula’s death after he responded to the scene of the crash. Earlier this year, the OPA recommended that Diaz fire Auderer for his comments. 

With Manion’s office declining to prosecute, SPD can refer the case to City Attorney Ann Davison’s office for misdemeanor charges. SPD did not immediately respond to a question about whether they planned to ask Davison to review the case. Manion’s decision also restarted the clock on the OPA investigation, which will determine whether Dave faces any discipline from the department.

Dave joined the department in 2019 and received a hiring bonus. He previously had his Arizona driver’s license suspended in 2018 for unpaid traffic fines and failure to appear in court, according to reporting from DivestSPD. He previously worked for the Tucson Police Department for about a year and a half in 2013, but he left for unknown reasons.

Community activists have called for SPD to fire Dave for his actions leading to Kandula’s death, and they’ve also called for criminal charges to be brought against him. In response to Manion’s decision, the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression said it plans to hold a protest at 6 pm Friday outside the West Precinct.

 

Ashley Nerbovig is a staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts. She is like other girls.

26 replies on “King County Prosecutors Decline to Charge SPD Officer for Killing Pedestrian”

  2. @2 Will in Seattle: +1 Agreed. It’s fucked up that Seattle and King County have no reliable police force.

    Law enforcement is supposed to protect and serve the public.

    SPD and SPOG don’t fight crime—they’re all for it, especially if it involves worshipping the Orange Turd.

    I’m pretty confident the five assholes from the SPD who took part in the January 6, 2021 coup attempt aren’t facing prison time, either.

  7. @4 driving recklessly is not an accident. it’s intentional. responding to an emergency doesn’t absolve the emergency vehicle driver of adhering to laws and operating the emergency vehicle in a safe manner.

    not to mention the fact it wasn’t even something police should be responding to.

    fuck the police. all of them .

  9. RCW 46.61.520(1)(c) “When the death of any person ensues within three years as a proximate result of injury proximately caused by the driving of any vehicle by any person, the driver is guilty of vehicular homicide if the driver was operating a motor vehicle with disregard for the safety of others”

    They didn’t think they could prove this??

  10. @13 they didn’t want to prove it

    Even if homicide charges were truly difficult to stick, that doesn’t mean he should not face any sort of legal consequences. This is just another slap in the face to the city where cops keep getting more money to do more horrible shit, that horrible shit gets forgiven and swept under the rug, and then they act befuddled as to why no one likes or trusts them.

  11. @4 assuming for the sake of argument the person was actually OD’ing (they weren’t) what was the cop gonna do? If an ambulance driver had mowed down a pedestrian while driving 3x the speed limit without continuous siren I could maybe see the argument, but this was an entirely senseless and unnecessary killing and the officer escaping accountability is a travesty of justice.

  12. Here’s what the prosecutor had to prove for vehicular homicide:

    To operate a motor vehicle in a reckless manner means to drive in a rash or heedless manner, indifferent to the consequences.

    or

    Disregard for the safety of others means an aggravated kind of negligence or carelessness, falling short of recklessness but constituting a more serious dereliction than ordinary negligence. Ordinary negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary care. Ordinary negligence is the doing of some act which a reasonably careful person would not do under the same or similar circumstances or the failure to do something which a reasonably careful person would have done under the same or similar circumstances. Ordinary negligence in operating a motor vehicle does not render a person guilty of vehicular homicide. WPIC 90.05

  13. @4: “to serve and protect an overdose”

    Very low priority, in my opinion. You do drugs, you take your chances. We’ve got to stop coddling the druggies.

  14. @16 RCW 46.61.465 “The unlawful operation of a vehicle in excess of the maximum lawful speeds provided in this chapter at the point of operation and under the circumstances described shall be prima facie evidence of the operation of a motor vehicle in a reckless manner by the operator thereof.”

    Hard to imagine 3x the limit wouldn’t then be criminal negligence

  15. @ 18. The Washington Pattern Instruction committee recommends that an instruction based on RCW 46.61.465 not be given. In other words, it is possibly bad law and using it could cause an appeals court to overturn the conviction.

    WPIC 94.04

    https://govt.westlaw.com/wcrji/Document/I0943897ea75611dd8931e514b9d4bd12?transitionType=Default&bhcp=1&contextData=%28sc.Default%29

    Also excessive speed alone does not constitute driving in a reckless manner. State v. Farr-Lenzini, 93 Wn.App. 453, 470, 970 P.2d 313 (1999)…” State v. Dickey, 40783-3-II (Wash. App. May 03, 2011)

  16. Amy Freedheim, the prosecutor who made the call in this case, is in charge of every vehicular homicide in King County and has been doing this for decades. She’s the most experienced vehicular homicide prosecutor in WA history. She’s also been one of the biggest promoters of stricter DUI and vehicular homicide/assault laws over the years.

  17. @19/20 the reported OD was from cocaine so no I wouldn’t have wanted a cop (or anyone) to administer Narcan. And one defense the prosecutors suggest, that the victim was an intervening cause of her own death, is facially absurd. No jury would ever blame a victim for not anticipating someone may be driving 75 in a 25 and therefore not be able to stop in time before stepping into a marked crosswalk. The only reason they’re even entertaining that notion is because this driver was a cop and they’re flailing to justify not charging him. In both this and the Showbox shooting the officers used poor–albeit opposite–judgement and both should be held appropriately accountable.

    @21 just because an instruction isn’t recommended to be given doesn’t mean it’s bad law or can’t be argued. In Farr-Lenzini the instruction WAS given and the appeals court found no error where the driver was going 30-40 miles over the limit. Here the cop was driving 50 miles over the limit.

  18. @23 if you know Freedheim you know she would never treat a case involving a non-cop defendant this way. This is unequal justice and it’s a disgrace

  19. An officer is allowed to speed when responding to a priority 1 call, correct? Someone posted protocol says up to 50 mph on this street (not sure if this is correct, just what someone else said). The officer was traveling 74 mph on a 25 mph limit, but allowed to go 50 mph, so 24 mph over the speed limit. Makes a big distinction. People traveling 24 mph over, with no other bad driving, and normally not cited for reckless driving.

  20. @24. “the trooper testified that Farr-Lenzini was driving “erratically,” she ran a  four-way stop, and she had to cut across lanes to negotiate a corner. Given this evidence, one can say with “substantial assurance” that the presumed fact of Farr-Lenzini’s reckless driving more likely than not flowed from the proven fact of her speed.”

    Lot more evidence of bad driving in Farr-Lenzini than what we have here.

  21. @27 you mean aside from hitting and killing a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk? In any event I was speaking only to your mistaken suggestion that the RCW in question may be bad law.

  23. @25, you are obviously frustrated, angry and hurt as I think most of us are in Seattle. We are tired of pedestrians getting killed; we are disgusted with SPOG lackeys who are apparently so jaded and callous that they would make a sick joke days after something tragic like the death of Jaanahvi. But the fact that you are mad doesn’t mean that you understand jack-shit about this case or how the law works.

    I know Amy Freedheim. She has been working tirelessly, without bias or favor for the victims of vehicular homicide and assault in King County for decades. Which is a hell of a lot longer than you’ve been looking up the RCW and shit-posting on the Slog.

    I’ll add that if you think that the primary purpose of criminal prosecution is to mete out revenge on anyone who society happens to be angry at, even if we do not reasonably believe that person broke the law, then go ahead and vote for Trump in the upcoming election. Because that is exactly the kind of mob justice we may end up with.

  24. @30 I’m not gonna respond to your ad hominems except to say you couldn’t be more wrong about my opinions regarding the criminal system. But if you know Freedheim like you claim to please tell me I’m wrong, that she would similarly decline to charge a non-cop who drove 75 in a 25 and hit and killed a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk because it was partly the pedestrian’s fault for getting in the way. You can’t. I’m mad about the hypocrisy like everyone of conscience should be.

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