Category: public safety

City Council, podcasts, Police, public safety

This Week on PubliCola: January 25, 2025
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka raising one finger in the air
Seattle City Councilmember Rob Saka, five minutes into a yes/no question

The council weighs a critical appointment, a cop gets sentenced for murder, and firefighters triple their salaries with overtime.

By Erica C. Barnett

Tuesday, January 21

Seattle Nice: Our 2025 Predictions!

PubliCola founder and columnist Josh Feit joined us on the Seattle Nice podcast this week to discuss our predictions for 2025, including MAGA’s emergence in Seattle, David’s predictions for this year’s February and November elections, Sandeep’s expectation that Seattle will continue its “malaise” era, and my worries about Seattle’s readiness for immigration raids and the likely withdrawal of federal funding during Trump 2.0

Wednesday, January 22

Council Forum Skips Past Land Use to Focus On Seward Park Drivers, Beat Cops, and “the Threat of Sound Transit”

The city council is preparing—for the second time in a year—to appoint a new member, this time to represent Southeast Seattle in the seat formerly held by Tammy Morales. Unfortunately, the one and only public forum for the six finalists focused on micro-issues and complaints the city council has no power to address—like “why can people who I don’t know park in front of my house?”

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Thursday, January 23

Auburn Cop Convicted of Murder and Assault Is First Sentenced Under 2018 Accountability Law

An Auburn police officer who was convicted of murdering and assaulting Jesse Sarey, a 26-year-old homeless man who was experiencing a mental health crisis, was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison under a law passed by voters in 2018 that reduced the high burden of proof for police misconduct.

Friday, January 24

Nearly 200 Firefighters Made More than $200,000 Last Year, Amassing Thousands of Hours of Overtime

Last year, 180 Seattle Fire Department employees—almost one in five—made more than $200,000, doubling or tripling their salaries by working thousands of hours of overtime. Of those, 19 made more than $300,000, sometimes averaging 120 hours a week or more under a system that places almost no limits on how much overtime a firefighter can accrue.

Saturday, January 25

Six Applicants Make Their Case to Become the City Council’s Newest Member

The council applicants made their cases before the city council for nearly two hours on Thursday, answering questions that ranged from “where did you go to middle school?” to “how will you approach the city’s comprehensive plan?”

 

public safety, Uncategorized

Nearly 200 Firefighters Made More than $200,000 Last Year, Amassing Thousands of Hours of Overtime
Seattle Fire Station Tim, by Joe Mabel, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

Last year, 180 Seattle Fire Department employees—almost one in five—made more than $200,000, doubling or tripling their salaries by working large, and sometimes mind-boggling, amounts of overtime. Of those, 19 (20 if you count Fire Chief Harold Scoggins) made more than $300,000, with several reporting salaries close to $400,000—a level that puts them in the ranks of Seattle Police Department officers like Ron Willis, who was recently suspended for working excess overtime after making almost $400,000 last year.

PubliCola obtained Fire employees’ pay information, including a breakdown that accounts for vacation, leave, overtime, and other pay codes, through a records request.

Most of the SFD employees who made over $300,000 reported working thousands of hours of overtime, on top of the 90.46 hours they get paid for every two weeks.

The highest-paid SFD employee was Captain James Hilliard, a 32-year veteran who added $180,000 to his $120,000 salary by working 2,335 hours of overtime, reporting more than 200 hours of overtime in each of five different months in 2024. Another captain, Michael Frediani, more than tripled his $105,000 salary—to $384,000—by clocking in for 1,726 hours of overtime, including 252 in December alone.

But it wasn’t just higher-ranking firefighters who cleared the $300,000 bar.

Under their union contract, Seattle firefighters automatically get paid for about 2,350 hours in a year, including vacation, sick time, merit pay, holidays, and other time off. Many Seattle firefighters in the top income bracket were paid for 4,000, 5,000, or even 6,000 hours, most of that in overtime.

Firefighter Daniel Kieta, whose base salary in 2024 was $95,000, more than tripled his pay to $315,000, receiving pay for 6,000 hours on the clock last year, including almost 2,400 hours of overtime. That works out, on average, to 45 hours of overtime for each 45-hour week. But it wasn’t distributed evenly. Last June, for example, Kieta reported working 267 hours at regular pay and 283 hours of overtime, for an average of 128 hours a week, more than 65 hours a week of that in overtime.

Darren Schulberg, a firefighter since 1991, reported working 5,730 hours in 2024, including 2,405 hours of overtime; those hours helped boost his annual pay from $86,635 to $322,775. In June, Schulberg added 259 hours of overtime to 254 hours at regular pay, for a an average of 120 hours a week.

And Jason Lynch, a firefighter with a base salary of $97,000, made an additional $238,000 in overtime, including 441 overtime hours in December. All told, Lynch reported working 688 hours in December, for a average of 155 hours a week that month. (There are 168 hours in a week).

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Firefighters can take rest breaks during long shifts, so these extraordinary hours include some down time for sleep. PubliCola has asked SFD if there are any other factors that would account for firefighters working 120-, 130, or 150-hour weeks.

These are far from the only Seattle firefighters who reported working more than 5,000 hours last year; in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, at least 30 firefighters said they worked between 4,002 and 5,278 hours.

SFD did not respond to a request to make firefighters at the top end of the overtime range available to talk about what their shifts are like.

In 2022, the Seattle Times ran a piece about firefighters working record overtime hours the previous year—claiming that firefighters like Kieta were “forced” to work thousands of extra hours because “unprecedented staffing shortages.” At the time, the department had 1,026 firefighters, about 50 fewer than it does today. Fire department spokesperson Kristin Hanson said the department is still facing a shortage, as more officers retire and recruitment lags. Currently, she said, 130 firefighter positions are vacant, after 232 retirements between 2020 and 2024.

But that doesn’t entirely account for employees like Kieta, who the Seattle Times highlighted as the top member of what the paper called the “4,000-hour club”—firefighters who were paid for working more than 4,000 hours in a year.

While staffing shortages explain the need for overtime, they don’t explain why it’s distributed so unevenly. Nor is it clear how supervisors, or firefighters themselves, determine when excessive work hours start to affect a firefighter’s ability to do their job, including responding to emergencies.

Unlike many other city employees, firefighters can volunteer for virtually unlimited overtime. Their union contract allows them to work 60 hours in a row, take 12 hours off, and then do it again. Working that schedule, a firefighter could amass 144 hours in a week. On top of that, Hanson said, a firefighter could amass more hours, up to 168, if they worked overtime at special events or were deployed to a large emergency event, like a wildfire or natural disaster.

According to Hanson, “Overtime hiring within the Seattle Fire Department is a fair and procedural-based process” based on the firefighters’ union contract. When firefighters sign up for overtime shifts, the person with the lowest number of overtime hours gets first crack at available overtime, for instance.

“As members approach higher amounts of overtime, additional hiring rules come into play all with the focus of a fair and equitable hiring process,” Hanson said.

Beyond rules designed to give everyone at the fire department a chance at overtime, the only real limit on a firefighter’s ability to work nonstop is their own level of fatigue: Emergency responders need to be alert, and a tired firefighter, like a tired cop, could be prone to making critical (and potentially fatal) mistakes.

But the only person who determines whether a firefighter is too fatigued to work is the firefighter himself. According to the firefighters’ contract, “Members are responsible for monitoring their state of readiness. When a member’s scheduled shift falls on the second consecutive shift and the member is not adequately rested to perform their duties, the member will inform his or her supervisor and request time off using sick leave, merits or other personal compensatory time.”

If a firefighter decides they can work 144 hours in a week,  in other words, that’s up to them. And hiring more firefighters, which SFD has been doing, clearly isn’t going to stop people from trying to amass as much overtime as possible.

There’s another potential motivation, beyond earning more money in any given year, for firefighters to try to boost their pay. The size of a firefighter’s pensions most of which are managed and funded through a state system called LEOFF, is determined by their five top-paying years—a powerful incentive to boost their “high five” numbers, especially they approach the end of their careers.

The city’s spending on the fire department has increased in recent years, although Hanson says the extra overtime is balanced out by the money the department saves by not being fully staffed.

Police, public safety

SPD Fires Officer Who Struck and Killed Pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula Two Years Ago
photo of Jaahnavi Kandula
Jaahnavi Kandula

By Andrew Engelson

On Monday, interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr sent an email to SPD staff announcing that she had fired officer Kevin Dave, who struck and killed 23-year-old graduate student Jaahnavi Kandula in a South Lake Union crosswalk in January 2023 while driving 74 miles per hour. 

PubliCola obtained the email, which was first reported on by The Stranger, from SPD. In it, Rahr noted that the Office of Police Accountability found that Dave had violated four SPD policies. Officers must adhere to laws; officers should modify emergency response when required; officers are responsible for the safe operation of their vehicles; and officers should use emergency lights during emergency responses.

 “I understand and accept that many will not agree with this decision,” Rahr wrote, adding that Dave was trying to get to a “possible overdose victim” and “did not intend to hurt anyone that night.” Rahr concluded, however, that “I cannot accept the tragic consequences of his dangerous driving. His positive intent does not mitigate the poor decision that caused the loss of a human life and brought discredit to the Seattle Police Department.”

The “possible overdose victim” was actually lucid and standing outside his South Lake Union apartment building when he called 911 to say he was “freaking out” on cocaine, telling the 911 dispatcher that his symptoms were “starting to go away.”

PubliCola previously reported that SPD knew before hiring Dave that he had been fired from the Tucson Police Department in 2013 for a “checkered past” that included discipline for several incidents, including one for a “preventable” collision. Dave was also questioned in an erratic driving incident after his firing; a Tucson police officer who spoke with Dave reported that he “appeared to be on some type of narcotic.” PubliCola also found that at the time of the collision with Kandula, Dave did not have a valid Washington driver’s license.

King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion declined to press charges against Dave. City Attorney Ann Davison issued Dave a $5,000 second-degree negligent driving ticket, which he initially challenged, but later agreed to pay.

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Kandula’s killing became an international outrage after police union vice president Daniel Auderer was caught on a body cam video taken shortly after the crash joking with police union president Mike Solan that SPD should “write a check for $11,000” because the young woman had “limited value.” Last July, Rahr fired Auderer, who responded with a $20 million tort claim for wrongful termination. 

In September, Kandula’s family announced they were suing the city of Seattle for $110 million plus $11,000, in a direct reference to Auderer’s comment about her “limited value.”

A PubliCola analysis of GPS data from SPD vehicles during the month of January 2023, when Kandula was killed, found that officers, including Auderer, regularly drive at excessive and dangerous speeds. In November, SPD updated its emergency vehicle operations policy, which had been extremely vague—instructing officers to  “drive no faster than their skill and training allows and [what] is reasonably necessary to safely arrive at the scene.” 

Courts, Mayor Harrell, podcasts, Police, public safety, Transportation

Seattle Nice: Harrell Fires Ex-Police Chief, Metro Killing Raises Transit Safety Questions, and What IS Art, Anyway?
I had AI generate “a beautiful sunrise” on a freeway wall as an example of what would qualify as “art,” according to Mayor Harrell. It’s fine I guess?

By Erica C. Barnett

Continuing with the era of good feelings on Seattle Nice, we had some mostly cordial disagreements this week on the issues of public safety, graffiti, and the firing of former police chief Adrian Diaz, although it’s hard to say we fully agreed on any of it (would it be Seattle Nice if we did?)

We started with this week’s biggest news—Mayor Bruce Harrell’s decision to finally fire former police chief Adrian Diaz, nearly seven months after formally removing him from his position and replacing him with interim chief Sue Rahr. (Harrell’s selection of Madison, Wisconsin chief Shon Barnes as permanent police chief, announced this morning, hadn’t happened yet when we recorded on Thursday).

Diaz was accused of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and several SPD policy violations stemming from a long-rumored affair with his chief of staff, Jamie Tompkins. After his removal as chief, Diaz went on a right-wing talk show to announce he was gay, calling the allegations against him “absurd.” He’s been receiving a salary of more than $350,000 since May.

Sandeep gave Harrell his flowers for firing Diaz after months of diligent investigation; I said the situation was more complicated than that, noting that former Office of Police Accountability director Gino Betts was shown the door after some on his staff complained that Betts had slow-walked the OPA’s own investigation into Diaz, slowing down the process and potentially keeping Diaz on the payroll longer than necessary.

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We also discussed the murder of a Metro bus driver in the University District earlier this week. Like many local elected officials, Sandeep said the tragedy demonstrated the need for more police, security guards, and fare enforcement officers on buses and at transit stops to prevent future violent crime.

I argued that the murder—the first such killing in more than 26 years—would not have been prevented by flooding the transit system with officers, nor does it demonstrate that “transit is dangerous.” (Murders and assaults, obviously, do contribute to a perception of danger, as the killing of a bus driver on the Aurora Bridge did in 1998. After that tragedy, elected officials and the drivers’ union also said buses were unsafe and called for more police.)

Even if flooding the system with police was an effective strategy for preventing crime, it would be financially impossible for King County to put an officer on each of the hundreds of buses that are running at any given time in order to prevent assaults on bus drivers, or retrofit all its buses with inaccessible driver compartments, as some are already suggesting. Such assaults, though terrible, are fairly rare: According to the Seattle Times, there have been 15 reported assaults on bus drivers in the first 11 months of 2024, down from 31 in 2023.

Finally, we talked about the graffiti arrests I reported on earlier today. If you think the tone of my story is too relentlessly neutral, and you’re wondering how I REALLY feel about government officials defining what is “art,” listen to this segment and find out.

Police, public safety

Seattle Police Department Updates Its Emergency Driving Policy
Matt Zalewski, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Andrew Engelson

In mid-October, the Seattle Police Department released new emergency vehicle operations (EVO) policies that instruct officers to “drive no faster than their skill and training allows and [what] is reasonably necessary to safely arrive at the scene.” The new rules were a belated response to community outrage after an SPD officer, Kevin Dave, struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in a South Lake Union crosswalk while driving 74 mph.

The new guidelines also advise officers to consider specific factors before deciding whether to break speed limits or traffic laws when responding to emergencies – including the priority level of the call, whether pedestrians can see and respond to an officer’s vehicle, the “character of the location (i.e. freeway vs. side street)” and weather and road conditions. 

The new emergency driving policy now more closely aligns with SPD’s pursuit policy, which directs officers to pay attention to various factors before deciding whether to pursue a subject. SPD’s previous policy was extremely vague and gave little specific guidance to officers about when they can engage in emergency driving other than “where there is a legitimate concern for the preservation of life” and “only when the need outweighs the risk.”

Nearly two years after Kandula was killed, SPD finalized the policy after members of Seattle’s Indian American community and the Community Police Commission (CPC) demanded changes. 

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Joel Merkel, a co-chair of the CPC, was encouraged by the new policies, which he said incorporated some of the CPC’s suggestions. “I appreciate the requirement that officers are not supposed to drive any faster or more dangerously than is reasonably necessary to get to the call safely,” Merkel said.  “These are all positive developments that make the policy much less vague, a lot more clear, and provide some safeguards to ensure that emergency responses are safer and that there can be some accountability when they’re not.”

SPD did not make one change the CPC requested—specific restrictions on how fast officers can drive in an emergency, such as a certain amount over the legal speed limit. SPD chief operating officer Brian Maxey said specific limits would put additional burdens on officers trying to assess the risks and require them to “perform calculations in real time, which presents additional distractions.”

According to Maxey, the new policy restates previous guidance to officers to balance the risk of the response against the urgency of the call – but now spells out what factors increase those risks. “Consistent with recommendations from the CPC, the new policy sets out some specific criteria to consider under the totality of the circumstances faced by an emergency driver,” Maxey said.

Maxey said all sworn officers will be trained on the new policy. “The plan is to update the entire department on high-speed emergency driving in 2025,” he said. “That will provide a skills refresher, but will be guided by the policy.”

Merkel said training will be critical in implementing SPD’s new policy. “The type of driving that is contemplated by officers in emergency responses is far beyond the capabilities of the average citizen,” he said. “So there absolutely must be robust training to ensure that when officers are responding to an emergency, they have those skills necessary to do it safely.”

The CPC expressed concerns last year that SPD does not have a dedicated facility for training. In the past, the department has contracted with a racetrack in Kent as a training site. 

Merkel also noted that the new policy instructs officers to use lights and sirens during emergency responses, with only a few exceptions. The previous policy only directed officers to use “audible signals” (such as chirps rather than ongoing sirens) and had no explicit recommendations about when to use emergency lights.

“I think the new policy makes it clear that that’s the default,” Merkel said. “You should be using your lights and sirens, and turning them off is the exception.” Dave had his lights on but was only chirping his siren at intersections before he hit Kandula.

Whether the new policy will lead to stronger discipline for officers who drive at excessive or dangerous speeds is an open question. Dave is still on SPD’s payroll and so far has only received a traffic ticket for the incident. According to an analysis of GPS data acquired by PubliCola, SPD officers frequently drive at excessive and dangerous speeds, often when they aren’t even responding to an emergency.

The new policy says officers should not disregard the safety of others during emergency driving, “nor is the sworn employee protected from the consequences of their reckless disregard for the safety of others.”

Though Merkel said he was skeptical that SPD officers will now face stronger discipline for unsafe driving, he does believe the new policy spells out what officers need to consider to improve safety. “With a clearer rule and a clearer standard, it is much easier to hold an officer accountable when the rule or standard is violated,” Merkel said. “If it’s a vague policy, a vague standard, it becomes much more difficult to enforce accountability. So because the rule has become clearer, I think it does make accountability easier.”

Police, public safety

Jaahnavi Kandula’s Family Sues City for $110 Million Plus $11,000, In Direct Reference to Officer’s Callous Comments

photo of Jaahnavi Kandula

Kandula, a 23-year-old student, was struck and killed by Seattle police officer Kevin Dave last year.

By Andrew Engelson

Attorneys for the family of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was struck and killed in a South Lake Union crosswalk by a Seattle Police Department officer traveling 74 miles an hour, filed a lawsuit this afternoon against the city of Seattle and SPD officer Kevin Dave for more than $110 million. In the claim, filed in King County Superior Court today, attorneys wrote that Kandula “experienced terror, severe emotional distress, and severe pain and suffering before dying.”

The sizable figure —$110 million, plus $11,000—is a direct reference to the callous comments made by SPD officer Daniel Auderer shortly after the fatal collision.

Auderer, the vice chairman of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, had been called to the scene to investigate Dave for signs of intoxication. Caught on body cam video in conversation with police union leader Mike Solan, Auderer joked and laughed about Kandula’s death, saying, “Just write a check. $11,000. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value.”

Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr fired Auderer in July. In response, he filed a $20 million tort claim against the city for “wrongful termination.”

“It is absolutely abhorrent to get on the phone and laugh about anyone’s death,” attorney Vonda Sargent told PubliCola.  “He’s suing for $20 million, so I guess he thinks the value of his life is far greater than the value of Jaahnavi’s.”

The figure, if awarded by a jury, would represent the largest personal injury claim ever against the city of Seattle. The highest award paid out by the city was in 2016, when the city and its insurers paid $65.7 million to the family of an attorney who was struck and severely injured by a Seattle fire truck.

The city attorney’s office and SPD both declined to comment on the lawsuit.

PubliCola reached out to the mayor’s office on Friday afternoon and will update this article with their response.

Kandula, a 23-year-old engineering student from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, was crossing Dexter Avenue at Thomas Street when she was killed on the evening of January 23, 2023. The legal complaint was filed by Kandula’s mother and father, Vijaya Laksmi Gundapuneedi and Sreekanth Kandula, who both live in India. 

“It is absolutely tragic. I don’t think that they’ll ever get over it,” Sargent said of Kandula’s parents. “Your first-born child is gone forever. Parents are not supposed to bury their children.”

The claim notes that “[a]s a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ negligent conduct, Plaintiff Kandula sustained extreme pain and suffering after being slammed into by Defendant Dave’s speeding patrol vehicle traveling up to 70 MPH,” the lawsuit says. The claim also notes that Kandula’s parents “continue to endure severe emotional distress as a result of their daughter’s death.”

In March, Sargent and attorney Susan Mindenbergs, working for family members representing Kandula’s estate, filed a tort claim—also for $110 million plus $11,000—with the Seattle City Attorney’s office. According to the claim, the family sought damages for wrongful death, “loss of familial consortium” (emotional, non-economic losses due to the loss of a family member), and negligent planning and construction of the crosswalk and street infrastructure at Dexter and Thomas, where Kandula was struck.

Dave struck and killed Kandula while driving to assist the Seattle Fire Department, which was responding to a call from a South Lake Union resident who said he was “freaking out” after taking cocaine. Though Dave turned on his signal lights, the filing notes that Dave only “chirped” his siren while going through red lights and “failed to activate his patrol vehicle siren before approaching the intersection of Dexter Avenue North and Thomas Street.” 

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Sargent said that officer Dave had no reason to exceed 70 mph on this particular call. “It was unnecessary,” she said, “because the urgency of it had already passed.”

She also said Dave’s high speed wasn’t necessary. “The difference in speed with him going 35 or 40 miles per hour and 74—the time he’s ‘making up’ is negligible,” Sargent said. “It’s not as though doing 74 miles an hour is going to get you there 15 minutes sooner.”

The lawsuit also says that Dave “was driving with one hand on the steering wheel” just prior to hitting Kandula. 

The lawsuit notes that Dave was driving at least 70 mph in a 25 mph zone and that the force of the collision “caused Plaintiff Kandula to fly 136.99 feet before crashing into the roadway.” According to data from the Transport Research Laboratory, the fatality rate for crashes at 70 mph is close to 100 percent.

Though a SPD police report on the collision noted that a “pedestrian’s expectations when crossing a street are that they will likely encounter traffic traveling at speeds near the posted speed limit,” Dave chose to drive nearly three times that limit. As PubliCola previously reported, Seattle Police Department’s emergency vehicle operations policies are extremely vague and give officers wide latitude in how and when they may break traffic laws when responding to a call, advising them to speed and run lights “only when the need outweighs the risk.”

The Kandula family’s lawsuit also notes that Dave did not have a valid Washington State drivers license, another detail PubliCola first reported.

Sargent said SPD was negligent on many levels, from hiring Dave to having vague guidelines for when police can speed to unsafe street design. “The people who are responsible for the care and safety of the citizenry should have at least the base level of care for the citizenry. That means being cautious when you drive. Having the requirements, all the qualifications for driving, like a license. And knowing that if you’re screaming up and down city streets that you’re likely to hit someone.”

In its complaint, attorneys for Kandula’s family allege that SPD “negligently hired Defendant Dave whose employment record included being terminated from the Tucson Police Department for numerous incidents of poor performance, bad judgment, and misconduct.”

The lawsuit directly refers to many details PubliCola has uncovered over the past year and a half about the collision and Dave’s history, including his firing by the Tucson Police Department and his “checkered history” there before SPD hired him in 2019.

TPD fired Dave in 2013 after numerous investigations, including one involving a “preventable collision” for which he was suspended right before being fired. 

“He should have never been hired,” Sargent said. “You can’t take just all comers. Everyone is not suited or fit to be a law enforcement officer.” Sargent said that the fact SPD knew about Dave’s troubled history and hired him anyway points to a systemic problem rather than the misconduct of one officer.

As we reported earlier this year, an SPD sergeant contacted Tucson police while investigating an incident in which Dave was seen “apparently filming the facilities” at an SPD training center in August 2020. The Tucson police told SPD about Dave’s history, including a troubling incident that occurred shortly after he was fired, when an officer pulled him over for speeding, Dave was pulled over by a Tucson police officer for speeding. 

According to a TPD report on that incident, Dave was “unable to stand still, he was talking very fast, and his pupils were dilated.” The officer filing the report suspected Dave appeared to be “possibly on some type of narcotic.”

In February, King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion declined to file felony charges against Dave, and City Attorney Ann Davison issued him a negligent driving traffic ticket with a $5,000 fine. Last month, PubliCola reported that Dave and his attorney are challenging that ticket in municipal court. 

The lawsuit also refers extensively to Seattle Department of Transportation’s planning and construction of pedestrian infrastructure and street design at and near the site of the collision. It notes that SDOT has delayed planned improvements at the intersection, as we noted in our initial report on the collision. 

“There are issues with that particular intersection,” Sargent said. “And then we learned that citizens were calling in about that intersection.”

The claim quotes from an SDOT customer service summary dated February 2023, that observed, “An Indian student died at the intersection of Dexter and Thomas on Jan 23rd. She was apparently hit by a police cruiser 4 weeks ago [at] the same intersection I requested to install new stop signs to avoid such accidents from happening.”

In addition, the lawsuit quotes from SPD detective Brett Schoenberg’s internal report on the incident, which stated “The speed at which Ofc. Dave was traveling did not allow Kandula or him sufficient time to detect, address and avoid a hazard that presented itself.”

The claim also notes that when investigating whether Dave was intoxicated, Auderer did not order a breathalyzer or blood test but only did a visual assessment of Dave.

Sargent said Kandula’s family plans to set up a foundation in Jaahnavi’s memory if a jury makes an award.

“I think most people can understand on some level, this sort of loss,” Sargent said. “You send your child to a foreign country to educate herself, to make herself better, to help the family, and she’s taken from you,” Sargent said.

“And then when she’s taken from you, it’s turned into an international joke. You have people laughing and guffawing about the loss of your daughter,” Sargent said.

“The family wants justice. They want some accountability. Because it should have never happened.”