Seattle Police Officer Was Driving 74 MPH When He Hit and Killed 23-Year-Old Pedestrian

By Erica C. Barnett

CONTENT NOTE: This story contains graphic descriptions related to a fatal traffic incident. 

Seattle police officer Kevin Dave was driving 74 miles per hour immediately before he struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula in a marked crosswalk at the intersection of Dexter Ave. and Thomas St. in January, according to documents obtained by PubliCola. The report says Dave hit his brakes less than one second before impact, striking Kandula at a speed of up to 70 miles per hour. The speed limit on Dexter, where Dave was driving an SPD SUV, is 25 mph.

“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,” an SPD analysis of the collision concludes.

According to the Transport Research Laboratory, the fatality rate for a collision at 70 miles and hour is close to 100 percent.

“Had Ofc. DAVE been traveling 50 MPH or less as he approached the intersection and encountered [Kandula] and Ofc. DAVE and responded in the same manner, this collision would not have occurred,” SPD’s forensic analysis of the collision concludes. That analysis estimates Dave was driving 70 mph on a road with a high level of car and pedestrian traffic, including many crosswalks.

“[A pedestrian’s expectations when crossing a street are that they will likely encounter traffic traveling at speeds near the posted speed limit,” the report says. “A driver’s expectation of a pedestrian in a crosswalk and the likelihood of a pedestrian being seen by a driver in the crosswalk are heightened.”

According to SPD’s vehicle inspection report after the crash, Dave struck Kandula so hard that his hood crumpled—sustaining a long gouge from her elbow at the point of contact—and smashed his windshield. After hitting her, Dave got out of the car to get his EMT equipment, but had to force the passenger side door open because the car’s fender was pushed back, obstructing the door. Kandula’s AirPods flew into the air during the collision; one was retrieved almost 100 feet down the street.

A witness described Kandula walking into the intersection, then attempting to run. “I heard a siren approaching,” the witness said.” I saw her … start to move faster as though, like, ‘I need to get out of the street, there’s a siren coming. And then I heard a loud thud.” According to SPD’s analysis of the incident, “it is believed that she was attempting to reach an area of perceived safety.” Once she was in crosswalk, Kandula had “little time to assess her options to respond to the threat” given the speed the car was going, the report says.

As we reported exclusively earlier this week, SPD has referred Dave’s case to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to determine whether to press charges against Dave. According to the reports obtained by PubliCola, Dave appears to be living in Arizona, where he worked briefly as a  police officer and loss prevention officer, according to reporting by DivestSPD, before SPD hired him in 2019. He received his police certification on June 12, 2020.

The incident report quotes Dave telling a sergeant who responded to the scene that Kandula “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,” then made a motion with his hands from left to right.

The Seattle Police Department has said that Dave was responding “as an EMT” to an overdose nearby when he struck Kandula. Separately, the department has also suggested that he needed to be present to ensure the safety of first responders, because people who overdose on opiates can be violent or belligerent when they regain consciousness. As we’ve reported, the call actually came from a person who was “freaking out” because he used too much cocaine, and who was conscious, lucid, and standing outside his apartment building when medics from the fire department arrived.

The report details the minutes leading up to the collision. At 8:01, a dispatcher reported that someone had called in to report that they thought they were overdosing on cocaine. At 8:04, Dave reported he was en route to the call. At 8:05, the dispatcher updated Dave and another officer responding to the call that “the person overdosing is calling it in himself. … He wants to stay on the phone with us until officers arrive.” Two minutes later, Dave struck Kandula in a crosswalk.

In response to questions from the Community Police Commission about Dave’s use of “emergency” high-speed driving when responding to the 911 call, Police Chief Adrian Diaz said Dave was “responding to assist the Seattle Fire Department with an overdose according to established interdepartmental protocols.”

Seattle law allows an officer responding to an emergency to “exceed the maximum speed limits so long as he or she does not endanger life or property, but says that exemption doesn’t “relieve the driver of an authorized emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons using the highway nor from the duty to exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian.”

The law also requires emergency vehicle operators to “use audible signals when necessary to warn others of the emergency nature of the situation.” The report notes that Dave had his emergency lights on and was “chirping” his siren at intersections but did not have his siren “activated consistently.”