An official at Seattle City Hall is leading the way in calling for “immediate action” from Chief Adrian Diaz over the comments captured by police union vice president Dan Auderer’s body-worn video as the officer joked on the phone about the January death of 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula with Seattle Police Officer Guild president Mike Solan.

“Yeah, just write a check,” Auderer wisecracks. “Yeah, $11,000. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value.”

Auderer has claimed his comments were made as sarcasm and “as a mockery of lawyers.”

South Seattle Councilmember Tammy Morales is calling on Diaz “to tell the Council and community, in real terms, how he plans to regain control of his department and fix the culture.”

“As the department and Seattle Police Officer’s Guild ask for more funding for recruitment and hiring, it’s becoming clear the top deterrent to attracting high-quality officers may be the culture of the department itself,” Morales said.

In a statement following the video’s release, Mayor Brucer Harrell expressed his condolences to the victim’s family and said Auderer’s comments don’t represent Seattle. “I want to be clear that the comments made by one person do not reflect the feelings of our city or the communities that call it home,” Harrell’s statement reads. “We recognize that Jaahnavi’s death is a loss for our whole community, the loss of a young woman who had so much life ahead of her to do amazing things and share that joy with loved ones.”

The Office of Police Accountability is investigating. A department statement from the chief said SPD “reserves any comment on the substance pending the completion of OPA’s investigation.”

Auderer, a cop who started as a rookie in the East Precinct in 2009 and now serves 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.

Publicola reports it requested videos and documents related to the January 23rd collision through the public disclosure process “several months ago” and notes the 12-year force veteran Auderer “has been investigated by OPA for dozens of allegations, including several that involved violence against members of the public.”

In the video, Auderer can also be heard downplaying the officer’s actions in the deadly crash. “I mean, he was going 50 mph. That’s not out of control. That’s not reckless for a trained driver,” Auderer said. Later investigation showed Dave was driving 74 MPH when he hit Kandula.

District 3 representative Kshama Sawant, marking her final weeks in office after a decade on the council, is also demanding an independent, public investigation “into this outrage” but is focusing her efforts on her larger goals around creating a new, nationwide political party.

“We need independently elected community oversight with full powers over the police, Sawant said. “But to win this, working people will need to organize independently of the Democratic Party.”

The revelation is the latest blow to issues around police legitimacy and trust in the city as labor battles with the department’s officers continue. CHS reported here earlier this year on video showing a Trump flag and a mock gravestone for a Black teen shot dead by police on the walls of the East Precinct at the time of the January 2021 Capitol riots.

It is also a setback just as SPD says it is setting a new path in terms of equitable policing and community trust. Earlier this month, a federal consent decree was lifted from the department, ending 12 years of controls and oversight after a civil rights investigation found evidence of excessive force and biased policing.

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