The City Settles

The family of Jaahnavi Kandula, the 23-year-old hit and killed by a speeding police officer whose death sparked outrage over bodycam recorded comments from a leader of Seattle’s police union making a “just write a check” joke about the tragedy, have settled their wrongful death lawsuit against the city.

The settlement? $29,011,000, massive penalty for the city — and a symbolic total.

“Yeah, just write a check,” Seattle Police veteran and union vice president Dan Auderer said in a conversation caught accidentally on body-worn video as the officer joked on the phone about the incident in which a speeding SPD officer struck Kandula as she crossed the street. “Yeah, $11,000. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value,” Auderer said.

The Office of Police Accountability later found Auderer violated department rules when he joked about the January, 2023 death. He was fired in 2024 and has since sued over the termination.

Auderer, a cop who started as a rookie in the East Precinct in 2009 and had been serving as a “drug recognition expert” frequently called to collisions across the city, left his body camera running after responding to the South Lake Union scene where officer Kevin Dave struck and killed Kandula while speeding 74 mph to a reported overdose. Kandula was thrown 100 feet.

Dave was fired in 2025. Publicola reported extensively on Dave’s checkered past in law enforcement. Publicola adds that SPD also changed its emergency driving policies in the wake of the tragedy.

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