Tag: Kevin Dave

Police

Seattle Officer Who Struck and Killed Pedestrian Cited for Two Collisions Before He Was Fired by Tucson Police
The intersection of Dexter and Thomas, where police officer Kevin Dave struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula last year.

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.

 

Police, public safety

Seattle Police Knew Officer Who Struck and Killed Pedestrian Had “Checkered History,” But Hired Him Anyway
Seattle police officer Kevin Dave (SPD body camera footage)

By Andrew Engelson

According to internal emails PubliCola obtained through a records request, the Seattle Police Department knew while he was still an officer in training that Kevin Dave–the officer who killed 23-year-old pedestrian Jaahnavi Kandula last year while driving 74 miles an hour–had a “checkered history” at the Tucson Police Department, which fired him in 2013.

That history included investigations into a “preventable collision” and a conduct violation that earned him a 10-hour suspension right before he was fired. In addition, emails between the Tucson Police Department and SPD show that Tucson police believed Dave was intoxicated when he abandoned his truck in an alley after driving away from police “at a high rate of speed”; during that incident, which occurred about eight months after Dave’s firing, the two responding officers reported that Dave was belligerent and blamed TPD for his inability to get a job at other police departments.

As PubliCola previously reported, SPD knew before hiring Dave that he had been fired by the Tucson police in 2013 for failing to meet the standards required of new recruits during his 18-month probationary period.

 

The SPD emails, from 2020, include messages between an employee of the Tucson Police Department and SPD sergeant Christopher Young, who inquired about Dave after he was spotted “apparently filming the SPD facilities at Park 90/5” (an SPD training center on Airport Way) in August 2020. Young, who was investigating the incident at the training facility, asked the Tuscon police about Dave’s record there.

A TPD employee replied that while he was an officer in Tuscon, Dave was the subject of six investigations. These included two investigations involving the use of a firearm; two collisions (including one the department deemed “preventable”); one for filing an incomplete or inaccurate police report; and one for violating of the department’s “general standards of expected conduct.” 

That final charge was the one that led to Dave’s suspension in November 2013, the same month he was fired. The emails show that Dave received counseling for two of the other incidents—the preventable collision and the incomplete or inaccurate police report—and that the firearm incidents were ruled “justified” and unfounded, respectively.

In an email thread, Young alerted Sergeant Detective Eric Chartrand to his concerns about Dave, and Chartrand alerted Lieutenant Grant Ballingham. Ballingham, in turn, sent an email to Lt. Jonathan Lucas with SPD’s Employment Services Department, raising alarms about Dave’s “checkered past”—specifically, an incident after Dave was fired in which the former officer was “likely driving drunk and was able to park his vehicle and walk away before the police could catch him in the act.”

“I am not sure if Mr. Dave is still being considered as a prospective employee, but I thought it prudent to pass this information along in case you or the Background Unit were not already aware of this,” Ballingham wrote.

Lucas responded that the department had already hired Dave and that SPD’s “hiring process included a thorough background check to include all past employment history.” Continue reading “Seattle Police Knew Officer Who Struck and Killed Pedestrian Had “Checkered History,” But Hired Him Anyway” →

City Council, labor, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Police

Officer Who Killed Pedestrian Got Recruitment Bonus, Decent Wages for City Workers Will Add Tens of Millions to Budget Gap

1. Kevin Dave, the officer who struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula in January 2023, was part of the cohort of new recruits who received $15,000 bonuses under the first of former mayor Jenny Durkan’s police recruitment programs. The plan, adopted in February 2019, provided $7,500 to new police recruits and $15,000 to officers transferring “laterally” from other departments. Dave was previously an officer in Tucson, Arizona, but was fired from that previous position in 2013 after failing to meet minimum standards during his 18-month probation period.

Dave’s personnel file, obtained by PubliCola reporter Andrew Engelson, indicates he received the $7,500 bonus in two payments in exchange for agreeing to stay at the department for three years after his hire date in November 2019.

Durkan, along with then-police chief Carmen Best, argued for hiring bonuses in 2019, 2020, and 2021 on the grounds that they would help SPD recruit a younger, more diverse cohort of police officers. Dave, a white man, checked “I choose not to disclose this information” next to demographic questions about his race and gender—an unusual move (in 2023, all 41 SPD recruits provided this information) that, if widely adopted, would muddy SPD’s demographic data and could make the department appear more diverse than it is.

SPD could announce how it will discipline Dave, as well as Daniel Auderer—the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president caught on tape laughing over Kandula’s death—as early as this Friday. Last week, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison announced she was giving Dave a traffic ticket for second-degree negligent driving, an infraction.

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2. A text-based poll sent to Seattle residents this week asked about how the Seattle City Council should close a $230 million budget gap this year, along with a list of quality-of-life questions that reflect items the city could prioritize for funding or target for cuts. Among questions about policing, homelessness, and crime, the poll included a number of questions about the state of downtown Seattle—a top priority for Mayor Bruce Harrell and business groups like the Seattle Metro Chamber—and taxes.

One question asked whether, after “rais[ing] taxes to fund new programs and initiatives” for several years, the city should “maintain the spending levels and programs in place today and raise new taxes to cover this $230 million deficit” or ” work to offset the deficit by prioritizing government basics, supporting our city’s most vulnerable residents, and reducing non-critical spending before considering tax increases.” Other questions ask whether respondents would feel safe visiting downtown Seattle during the day and at night; “how much impact … closing encampments in parks, on sidewalks, and on other public right of ways would have on improving quality of life in Seattle”; and whether they agree that “Downtown Seattle cannot fully recover until the homelessness and public safety problems are addressed.”

It’s unclear who is behind this poll, which mentions the city council but not the mayor. Harrell has indicated he does not plan to propose any new taxes to close the budget gap, and city departments are already making plans for significant budget cuts amid an ongoing hiring freeze.

3. Meanwhile, Harrell announced that he and the Coalition of City Unions have reached a tentative agreement that will provide a retroactive pay increase, known as a wage adjustment, of 5 percent for 2023 and a 4.5 percent wage adjustment for this year, for a total increase of 9.7 percent this year. (Because the 4.5 percent is an increase above the adjusted 2023 amount, the total works out to 9.7 percent rather than 9.5—math!) The final agreement, as we’ve reported, is a victory for the city unions, which dismissed Harrell’s initial 1 percent proposal as “insulting” and spent much of the last year fighting to increase it.

The final step is approval by the city council, which now includes several members who have suggested the city “has a spending problem” rather than a structural budget problem. Departments are reportedly coming up with plans to lay off employees if the mayor and council stick with their promises to eliminate the budget shortfall without raising new revenues. The new labor contracts are expected to add tens of millions of dollars to the budget this year and in 2025.

Courts, Elections, Morning Fizz, Police, public safety

City Attorney Disqualifies Judge from Criminal Cases, Issues Traffic Ticket to Officer Who Killed Student With His SUV

1. City attorney Ann Davison made two significant announcements via late-afternoon press release on Friday. First, she announced that the city’s criminal division chief, Natalie Walton-Anderson—whose last day was Friday—has issued a “standing affidavit of prejudice” against Seattle Municipal Judge Pooja Vaddadi disqualifying her from hearing criminal cases brought by the city attorney’s office.

The affidavit is a kind of peremptory challenge, similar to the challenges attorneys can make to disqualify jurors at at trial; in addition to the standing order, the city attorney’s office has to file an individual challenge in every case they want removed from Vaddadi’s courtroom.

In an internal memo about Vaddadi, Walton-Anderson said she often reversed other judges’ findings of probable cause or failed to find probable cause “in situations where, clearly, probable cause exists,” releasing people accused of DUI and domestic violence without considering their criminal history or the severity of the offense.

Additionally, Walton-Anderson said in a statement, “The resounding input from attorneys that have appeared in her courtroom is that her decisions demonstrate a complete lack of understanding, or perhaps even intentional disregard, of the evidence rules, even on basic issues.”

Vaddadi worked as a public defender for 10 months before challenging then-presiding judge Adam Eisenberg in 2022.

Filing a blanket affidavit of prejudice against a sitting judge is essentially the nuclear option, which is one reason the city attorney’s office hasn’t exercised it in recent memory. Pete Holmes, the former city attorney, considered filing one against Ed McKenna, a politically conservative former judge whom Holmes accused of violating the rules of judicial conduct, but didn’t—reportedly because it would be an extraordinary act against a separately elected official. The King County Department of Public Defense, however, did, arguing that McKenna was biased against defendants and disqualifying him from cases repeatedly during his final two years in office.

The blanket affidavit isn’t technically permanent, since the city attorney’s office could just stop filing individual affidavits, but it will force the court to move Vaddadi to an assignment that doesn’t involve deciding criminal cases, like hearing challenges to traffic infractions. We have reached out to Vaddadi, the city attorney’s office, and municipal court presiding Judge Faye Chess, and will post an update when there’s more to report.

2. Also on Friday evening, Davison announced that her office will be issuing a traffic ticket to Kevin Dave, the officer who struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk while driving 74 miles an hour—three times the speed limit. The infraction, second-degree negligent driving, carries a fine of up to $5,000. The city attorney will not file criminal misdemeanor charges against Dave.

Last week, as PubliCola reported, the King County Prosecutor’s Office announced that it would not file vehicular homicide charges against Dave because he was responding to a “legitimate, life-threatening call” as he sped down Dexter Avenue. That call was an “overdose” to which the police later said Dave was responding “as a paramedic,” suggesting he had to get there right away. However, as we reported last year, the caller was awake, lucid, and standing outside his apartment building as he told 911 operators he was afraid he had taken too much cocaine.

County prosecutors also said the fact that Kandula stepped into the crosswalk while Dave gunned his SUV in her direction could serve as a defense at trial, where Dave’s attorneys could argue it was a “superseding cause” that contributed to Kandula’s death. In its legal analysis, the county prosecutor’s office noted that the standard of proof for reckless driving—”willful or wanton disregard” for safety—is higher than the requirement for vehicular homicide, which only requires that a person is driving in a “reckless manner.”

King County, Police, public safety

Officer Who Killed Jaahnavi Kandula While Driving 74 MPH Will Not Face Felony Prosecution
Felony traffic prosecutor Amy Freedheim and King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion point to locations on a map of Dexter Ave., where Seattle police officer Kevin Dave struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in January 2023.

By Erica C. Barnett

King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion will not prosecute Seattle Police Department officer Kevin Dave in the killing of 23-year-old international student Jaahnavi Kandula last year. Manion’s office informed Kandula’s family of the decision Wednesday morning and discussed it with reporters this afternoon.

According to senior deputy prosecutor Amy Freedheim, who deals with felony traffic cases, the office can prosecute people for vehicular homicide  only under three circumstances: If the person is impaired by drugs or alcohol, if the person is driving recklessly, or if the person is driving with a “disregard for the safety of others,” which requires a “conscious disregard for safety,” Freedheim said.

“In the case of a police officer on a legitimate call, using lights and sirens, they are authorized to exceed the speed limit,” Freedheim said, adding that in this case, that the officer was “on a legitimate, life-threatening call”—that is, an overdose call.

The police department initially claimed Dave was responding to an emergency “at the request of” Seattle Fire Department first responders; later, they said he was heading to the scene “alongside” SFD to provide backup because people coming out of opiate overdoses can be violent or unpredictable. Later still, Police Chief Adrian Diaz said Dave was responding “as an EMT” to a medical emergency.

In reality, the caller was lucid and standing outside his South Lake Union apartment when he called 911 to report that he might have used too much cocaine.

Dave was driving a police department SUV 74 miles an hour on Dexter Ave., which has a speed limit of 25 miles an hour, when he hit Kandula, who was entering a marked crosswalk when she saw Dave’s vehicle approaching and appeared to panic, running further into the crosswalk in an attempt to escape.

The three chairs of the Community Police Commission—Rev. Harriett Walden, Rev. Patricia Hunter, and Joel Merkel—issued a statement questioning the prosecuting attorney’s finding that Dave’s driving did not meet the legal standards for recklessness or disregard for others’ safety. “At what speed would Officer Dave have had to drive for his emergency response to be considered reckless or disregarding the safety of pedestrians in the area?” they wrote.

In a jury trial, deputy prosecuting attorney Freedheim said, “any defense attorney [for Dave] would be looking at the superceding cause”—that is, the fact that Kandula stepped into the street while a police officer was approaching. Manion added later that the office did not intend to blame Kandula for running, but “we would still have to look at her decision to run” in deciding whether to prosecute Dave.

As we’ve reported, SPD’s emergency driving policy is vague, advising officers that they should engage in emergency driving when there is “legitimate concern for the preservation of life” and “only when the need outweighs the risk.” These policies, according to Manion, were not part of her office’s decision not to press charges; even if Dave was driving negligently, that would be a civil matter, not a potential felony.

Prosecutors said they also had to consider Kandula’s actions—that is, her decision to step into a part of the marked crosswalk that the office says was in the “lane of travel”—because “it is against the law to suddenly leave the curb and move into the path of a vehicle that is so close it is impossible for a driver to stop.”

In a jury trial, Freedheim said, “any defense attorney [for Dave] would be looking at the superceding cause”—that is, the fact that Kandula stepped into the street while a police officer was approaching. Manion added later that the office did not intend to blame Kandula for running, but “we would still have to look at her decision to run” in deciding whether to prosecute Dave.

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Three other witnesses reported hearing lights and sirens; in fact, Dave had “chirped” his siren at the intersection of Dexter and Thomas before accelerating to 74 miles an hour on Dexter.

SPD referred the felony traffic case to the prosecutor’s office last summer. Since then, the office has delayed making a decision repeatedly—most recently in October, when the office announced it was hiring an outside consultant to  to analyze in-car and body-worn video and other materials submitted by the Seattle Police Department as part of the investigation.

Prosecutors—highlighting the contrast between Dave’s behavior and that of Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president Daniel Auderer, who was caught on body camera footage joking with SPOG president Mike Solan about Kandula’s death—pointed to the fact that Dave was “appropriately upset” in the aftermath of the collision and immediately began administering CPR to Kandula.

“This has nothing to do with Auderer and his deplorable comments,” Freedheim said.

Manion said she was not authorized to comment on what Kandula’s family said to her when they spoke. “I do know that there are some people who will be disappointed in my decision,” she said.

Manion said she has scheduled a second call with Kandula’s family, including her mother, and would meet with members of the Community Police Commission and representatives from Indian American Community Services. Last month, members of IACS appeared at a CPC meeting to call for changes to SPD’s emergency driving policy, expressing outrage at the idea that any emergency would justify driving so fast on a city street.

In their statement, the CPC co-chairs said the commission is “currently finalizing recommendations to SPD regarding much-needed changes to
their vague emergency vehicle operation policy. SPD must adopt policies that protect life and do not put the community at further risk.” They also said the the CPC will continue looking into the “apparent policy of SPD responding to Seattle Fire Department responses to drug overdoses. The community deserves more answers from SPD and SFD as to why Officer Dave was responding to an overdose call in the first place.”

Dave is still employed by SPD. The Office of Police Accountability confirmed it will renew its own investigation of Dave, which has been on pause while the prosecutor decided whether to pursue felony charges. The formal complaint against Dave accuses him of behaving unprofessionally and violating the emergency driving policy, among other potential violations.

City Council, Density, Development, Elections, housing

Candidate Ron Davis Signs Anti-Upzoning Pledge, Democrats Blast Bob Kettle’s Misleading Ad; Prosecutors Seek Second Opinion in Police Crash Case

1. City Council candidate Ron Davis, who frequently touts his urbanist cred (The Urbanist called him an “urbanist supervolunteer“) signed a pledge written by the U District Community Council attesting that he will never vote to upzone University Way NE, AKA The Ave, during his council tenure. Davis is running to represent District 4, which includes the University District, against Maritza Rivera, who declined to sign the pledge.

The pledge, which takes the form of a letter to Mayor Bruce Harrell and the city council, says in part:

Preserving the unique quality that small independent businesses bring to the city and maintaining a pedestrian- friendly experience on this narrow street are critical to the sustainable development of this urban center.

You will recall that both candidates for our position on the council in the previous election cycle endorsed a similar letter in support. We will follow their lead and agree to not upzone The Ave during our tenure on the council.

The Ave is a special and historic place. Preserving it provides a serious public good, directly experienced by hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Former District 4 city councilmember Rob Johnson agreed to a plan to remove the Ave from a 2017 upzone that was part of the city’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda, or HALA; the upzones increased the amount of density allowed along arterial streets, where apartments were already legal, and modestly increased housing capacity in some former single-family-only areas. Neighborhood activists and small businesses rallied against upzoning the Ave, arguing that taller buildings (and more housing) in the U District’s commercial core would destroy the neighborhood’s character.

“As you know, I’m not a fan of using historic preservation style actions to create private benefits,” Davis told PubliCola. “But I’ve always thought that where preservation creates significant public benefit (in this case, preserving one of our few human scale, walkable, downtown style gathering places in Seattle) and it is open to the public, it makes sense to consider preservation if the benefits outweigh the costs.” Davis added that the rest of the city needs to be upzoned, not just commercial areas, and said downtown Ballard and Pike Place Market were similar areas that “don’t need high rises.”

Earlier this week, Davis sent out a fundraising email lambasting “the giant corporate developers (Master Builders Association) that have done so much to make Seattle expensive” for “dumping upwards of $100K on behalf of Rivera.” The Master Builders, Davis’ email continued, were the same “people who rewrote our tree legislation so it would be easier to cut down trees like Luma the Cedar in Wedgwood.”

Asked why she didn’t sign, Rivera told PubliCola, “I’m not comfortable signing a blanket pledge about this—or any other—complicated policy issue where the policy proposal’s details are unknown. As I told the UDCC, if I’m elected in November, I am committed to bringing a thoughtful approach to reviewing any proposal that is put before me.”

Earlier this week, Davis sent out a fundraising email lambasting “the giant corporate developers (Master Builders Association) that have done so much to make Seattle expensive” for “dumping upwards of $100K on behalf of Rivera.” The Master Builders, Davis’ email continued, were the same “people who rewrote our tree legislation so it would be easier to cut down trees like Luma the Cedar in Wedgwood.”

The claim puts Davis’ position squarely in line with Alex Pedersen, the District 4 incumbent who has been the most vocal opponent of new housing on the council. Pedersen was out on the fringes of the council on this issue; Davis’ mailer echoes the misleading claims Pedersen made back in May when trying to scuttle a tree protection proposal that a supermajority of the council supported.

“Luma,” the name advocates gave to a large cedar tree that a developer planned to (legally) remove to build townhouses, became a rallying point for neighborhood activists who have long opposed new housing in historically single-family areas like Wedgwood—which, as Josh pointed out last month, was originally a dense forest that was razed by white colonizers who wanted to build a new whites-only neighborhood in the area. Pedersen’s attempt to derail the long-negotiated legislation failed 6-1.

The Democrats called Councilmember Sara Nelson’s claim about people dying because Lewis did not initially vote for the bill “unintentionally misleading at best, deliberately lying at worst.”

2. The King County Democrats issued a statement on Thursday condemning District 7 council candidate Bob Kettle for an ad (which PubliCola covered last week) that includes images of encampments and features Position 8 City Councilmember Sara Nelson, who blames District 7 incumbent Andrew Lewis for causing deaths due to drug overdoses by failing to pass her original version of a bill empowering the city attorney to prosecute people for having or using drugs in public.

In the video, Nelson says, “Andrew Lewis’ decision to block my drug bill cost the lives of too many people from fentanyl overdose. I trust Bob Kettle to do the right thing.”

The Democrats compared the ads to similar “Republican scare tactics” used by Sen. Patty Murray’s unsuccessful challenger Tiffany Smiley last year; Smiley’s ads included images of encampments and a boarded-up Starbucks on Capitol Hill.

“Most distressing of all is the use of individuals experiencing homelessness in Bob Kettle’s ad, likely without their consent. It is imperative that we treat all individuals with dignity, especially those experiencing homelessness who already face immense challenges. Using their struggles for political gain is not only ethically wrong but also demonstrates a shocking lack of empathy and understanding,” the Democrats said in their statement. 

The Democrats called Nelson’s claim about people dying because Lewis did not initially vote for the bill “unintentionally misleading at best, deliberately lying at worst.”

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3.  The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced Thursday that it has hired an outside collision reconstruction firm, ACES, Inc., to analyze in-car and body-worn video and other materials submitted by the Seattle Police Department for the prosecutor’s felony traffic investigation into Kevin Dave, the SPD officer who struck and killed 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula as he was speeding to respond to a call nearby.

According to KCPAO spokesman Casey McNerthney, the prosecutor’s office will decide whether to file charges against Dave at some point after they review the video—and, potentially, reconstruct the collision scene itself. McNerthney said the prosecutor’s office will have another update—which could, but won’t necessarily, include a charging decision—in November.

As we’ve reported, the police and fire departments initially claimed Dave was responding “as an EMT” to an overdose nearby when he struck and killed Kandula in a crosswalk, elaborating later that police need to be on scene when the fire department is reviving people who have overdosed because they can be violent. PubliCola’s reporting later revealed that the caller had not overdosed, but was lucid and waiting outside his South Lake Union apartment building when he made the 911 call. As PubliCola reported, Dave was driving 74 miles an hour and did not have his siren on when he struck Kandula on Dexter Ave., which has a 25 mph speed limit.