US policeman who joked about India woman's death fired
Jaahnavi Kandula was a graduate student at Northeastern University in Seattle
- Published
A US police officer has been fired for saying that an Indian student's life was of "limited value" after she died last year.
The Seattle Police Department said that officer Daniel Auderer's comments about Jaahnavi Kandula's death were "vile" and callous", The Seattle Times reported, external.
Kandula, 23, was fatally struck down in January by another police vehicle while she was crossing a street near her university.
Daniel Auderer - who was responding to the incident - was recorded laughing and saying that she was a "regular person" and the city should "just write a cheque".
The footage was captured on his body camera while he had made a call to a colleague.
"But she is dead," the officer was heard saying before laughing. "No, it's a regular person. Yeah, just write a cheque," he said, before laughing again.
"Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26, anyway. She had limited value," he added.
The video was widely circulated on social media and sparked outrage online.
On Wednesday, Seattle Police Department's interim chief Sue Rahr announced the policeman's termination through a department-wide email.
His actions had brought shame on the entire department and the police profession, she wrote.
Interim chief Rahr added that his "cruel and callous laughter” and the pain it had inflicted on Kandula’s family could not be outweighed by Daniel Auderer’s good reputation among his colleagues and his years of service to the community.
"For me to allow the officer to remain on our force would only bring further dishonour to the entire department. For that reason, I am going to terminate his employment,” she said.
Daniel Audered had been placed under investigation after the incident.
The Office of Police Accountability - the agency that investigates police misconduct - had recommended his termination for unprofessional conduct and showing bias in recorded statements, the Seattle Times reported.
Jaahnavi Kandula was a graduate student at Northeastern University in Seattle.
The officer who hit her with his patrol vehicle was going at 74mph (119km/h) and she was thrown more than 100ft (30m), US media reports said.