Jaahnavi Kandula: Seattle cop mocks Indian girl’s police car crash death, says her life had 'limited value'

A bodycam video that appears to show Seattle police department officer Daniel Auderer joking about Jaahnavi Kandula, a 22-year-old Indian woman, who was fatally hit by a patrol car in January is now the subject of an investigation.

When Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, was assassinated beside her university, Officer Daniel Auderer was called to the scene.

In the video, the officer is heard suggesting the Indian student's life had "limited value" and the city should "just write a cheque".

The officer claims that his remarks were misinterpreted.

On January 23, Kandula, a graduate student at Northeastern University's Seattle campus, was slain when she was struck and killed by a police car as she crossed the street.

The graduate student's body was thrown more than 100 feet (30 metres), according to The Seattle Times, which cited a police investigative report. The officer driving the car was travelling at 74 mph (119 km/h), according to the report.

Officer Auderer was called to the scene of the incident where the audio from a call he made to a colleague was captured by his body camera.

"But she is dead," the officer is heard saying before laughing. "No, it's a regular person. Yeah, just write a cheque," he says, before laughing again.

"Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value."

Mike Solan, the guild president, and Auderer, a union representative for the Seattle Police Department, were on the phone. There is no audio for Solan.

The Seattle Police Department released a statement on Monday saying it discovered the conversation from an employee who listened to it "in the routine course of business".

That employee was "concerned about the nature of statements" and escalated their concerns up the chain of command, according to the police statement.

The Office of Police Accountability, a body that looks into police misconduct, was then given the case by officials.

The agency is looking into "the context in which" the statements were made and whether any policies had been violated, the Seattle Police Department has said.

According to a written statement Auderer provided to Jason Rantz, a conservative talk radio personality on KTTH-AM, Auderer's remarks were intended to replicate how municipal attorneys may attempt to reduce blame for the woman's death.

"I laughed at the ridiculousness of how these incidents are litigated," Auderer wrote, according to KTTH radio.

The Seattle Community Police Commission, another oversight agency, described the body-camera footage as "heartbreaking and shockingly insensitive".

Victoria Beach, the chair of the African American Community Advisory Council, told local news she "was shocked, had many emotions" and was "sickened about it".

"I was very disturbed that somebody could laugh about somebody that died," she said.

The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office is conducting a criminal review of the crash, BBC reported.