By Andrew Engelson

Kevin Dave—the Seattle police officer who killed 23-year-old pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula last year while driving 74 miles an hour—was involved in two collisions in the span of a month before he was fired by the Tucson Police Department in 2013 for “failing to meet minimum standards” during his one-year training period.

PubliCola exclusively reported on Dave’s November 2013 firing in January. In April, we reported that SPD knew Dave had a “checkered history” in Tucson—including five internal investigations as a recruit and a possible drunk driving incident—but hired him anyway.

PubliCola obtained documents detailing Dave’s collision history in Tucson through a records request.

The documents reveal that Dave failed to promptly report one of the collisions to his superiors; that incident occurred while he was driving without valid insurance. After a second incident that occurred a month before Dave was fired, a supervising lieutenant wrote, “I am extremely concerned about this pattern of bad decision making. Ofc. Dave is not demonstrating the kind of personal responsibility and sound judgment we require from a Tucson Police officer.”

Tucson police classified the second incident as a “preventable collision.”

The first collision occurred on July 26, 2013. According to the report, Dave failed to yield to an oncoming car while turning left at a stop sign, striking the car and tearing off the bumper of his patrol vehicle. Dave got a ticket and the collision was ranked as a relatively minor incident; as discipline, he received “counseling” from his supervisor.

The second collision occurred exactly a month later, on August 26, 2013. While on a lunch break during training for rookie officers, Dave was driving his personal vehicle when he rear-ended another car. There were no injuries, but Dave’s vehicle deployed its airbags and had to be towed. The other driver’s car was totaled, according to the report.

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After Dave and the driver and Dave exchanged information, the driver Dave struck called the Tucson Police Department to tell them Dave was driving without valid insurance. The investigation found that Dave was at fault, did not have active insurance, and did not report the incident to his superiors until more than an hour and a half had passed. Investigators found that Dave violated the department’s conduct standards and recommended a ten-day suspension—though by the time the report was filed, Dave had already been fired. 

The report also noted that in August 2013, a personnel evaluation found Dave had been driving with expired registration for seven months. The supervisor filing the report wrote, “…I advised him officers were held to a higher standard. I also explained the hypocrisy of Officer Dave potentially citing citizens for the very violation he had been committing each day he was driving his vehicle with expired registration.” The officer noted that Dave told him he was having financial difficulties and had to decide which bills were most urgent.

Earlier this month, the Seattle Times reported that Dave had failed to pay a $5,000 fine for a negligent driving citation he received from City Attorney Ann Davison’s office for striking and killing Kandula in a crosswalk in South Lake Union. King County prosecutors declined to file any charges against Dave for the fatal collision. 

The Tucson investigation into the second collision concluded that Dave “has shown extremely poor judgment in the way he handled himself throughout this incident” and faulted him for not telling his supervisor about the collision promptly but instead simply saying he would not return from lunch. The report noted Dave also failed to inform supervisors that the airbags had deployed and that another passenger was in his vehicle at the time. As a result, “the incident was not properly investigated,” according to the report.

SPD’s communications department did not respond to a request for comment on Dave’s history on Tuesday.