SEATTLE — A Seattle Police Department officer who struck and killed a pedestrian with his vehicle while responding to a 911 call in January was driving 74 mph just before the collision, according to an SPD investigation report referred to prosecutors for review last month.
Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old graduate student, was crossing Dexter Avenue North in a marked crosswalk in South Lake Union when Officer Kevin Dave hit her with his Ford sport utility vehicle, said the report, which determined that Dave’s speed was the main reason for the collision.
The speed limit was 25 mph, and the evening collision at Thomas Street could have been avoided had Dave been driving 50 mph or slower, according to the report first covered by the news outlet PubliCola.
Dave started braking less than a second before the collision and was still driving about 63 mph when he hit Kandula, who was thrown about 138 feet, the report said. When she was struck, she was less than six feet from safely reaching the center turn lane, the report found. There were no stop signs or traffic lights at the intersection.
“The proximate cause of this collision was the speed at which Ofc. DAVE approached the intersection,” concluded the report by a detective from SPD’s traffic collision investigation squad, which SPD released Tuesday in response to a public records request with Kandula’s name redacted.
“Ofc. DAVE accelerated to 74 MPH in a 25 MPH zone while headed to an emergency call. [Kandula] entered the crosswalk, and had the right of way, when the Ford was about 475 feet to the south of the intersection. The speed at which Ofc. DAVE was travelling (sic) did not allow [Kandula] or him sufficient time to detect, address and avoid a hazard that presented itself.”
State law says emergency responders can exceed speed limits when using audible signals but only as long as they don’t endanger life or property, SPD’s report said. SPD’s manual says officers responding to emergencies should “drive no faster than reasonably necessary to safely arrived at the scene.”
Dave had his SUV’s emergency lights activated, “chirped” his siren at other intersections during the Jan. 23 response and used it immediately before the fatal collision at Thomas Street; he didn’t have the siren activated continuously, SPD’s report said.
The Felony Traffic Unit of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case to determine whether to bring charges, and a decision is expected in July, spokesperson Casey McNerthney said Tuesday.
911 call
A student at Northeastern University’s South Lake Union campus who was on track to receive a master’s degree in information systems this year, Kandula was from Adoni, a city in southern India, and came to Seattle so she could one day support her mother there, relatives said.
She was walking west, wearing white shoes, black pants, a black jacket and a tan backpack as Dave’s dark blue SUV headed northbound on Dexter. The officer, who SPD hired in 2019, was responding to a 911 call from someone who thought they might be overdosing on cocaine.
The call came in at 8 p.m. and a SPD dispatcher announced over the radio that the caller would be outside, in front of the address. When Dave said he would respond, the dispatcher said Seattle Fire Department personnel were also en route. As Dave was on his way, the dispatcher added, “The person overdosing is calling it in himself … He wants to stay on the phone with us until officers arrive. He said he is unarmed.” Dave replied, “I’m copying that, thanks.” Dave’s next radio call came at 8:06, after the collision.
In the days after the incident, SPD said the officer was responding to a Priority 1 call, which involves a threat to life. SFD said a 28-year-old man had been evaluated and declined to be taken to a hospital. About 50 people rallied at Dexter and Thomas on Jan. 29 to protest the collision and demand justice for police-related killings. SPD didn’t identify the officer as Dave until Jan. 30, after the advocacy group DivestSPD reported his name.
Kandula was about 18 feet into the crosswalk and just about to enter Dexter’s northbound vehicle lane, having passed a bike lane and a no-parking zone, when she apparently became aware of the threat posed by Dave’s SUV, according to the SPD report, which used bystander witness statements and various camera recordings, including from Dave’s SUV.
She started to run, continuing west, according to the report. Kandula was likely trying to get across to the center turn lane but she didn’t arrive there before Dave’s vehicle struck her, the report said, noting that it can be difficult “to judge the speed” of approaching vehicles and noting that crossing pedestrians expect vehicles to be moving “near the posted speed limit.”
Kandula may have been wearing Apple AirPods in her ears, given that AirPods were found near the scene, but the SPD detective couldn’t determine whether that was the case. There were orange construction barricades along the east side of the vehicle lane and reflective materials that could have made it more difficult for Dave to see Kandula crossing the street, the report said.
Fatal collision
The collision smashed the front of Dave’s SUV on the passenger side, including the headlight, hood and windshield, and left a deep gouge on the hood, “later attributed to Kandula’s elbow, the SPD report said. Dave administered CPR until other emergency responders arrived.
He had to force open the passenger side door to retrieve a bag with emergency medical equipment because the door had been damaged by the collision, the report said. Kandula was taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition and pronounced dead at the hospital.
At the scene, Dave told an SPD sergeant, “She was in the crosswalk, she saw me, she started running through the crosswalk. Slammed on my brakes. Instead of staying back where she should before crossing, she just zips.” An SPD expert found no evidence Dave was impaired.
A witness who saw the collision told SPD: “I observed the pedestrian begin to run as the siren sounded … Then I heard a thump. I think it all happened very fast. I don’t know that either party had much time to react.”
The SPD report concluded, “Had Ofc. Dave been travelling (sic) approximately 50 MPH at the point where they were both responding to the collision, [Kandula] would have been able to run across the northbound lane of travel and would not have been struck by the Ford.”
SPD’s public affairs unit declined to comment on Dave’s employment status Tuesday, saying a records request would be needed for that information.
After the collision, in January, the dean of Northeastern’s Seattle campus, David Thurman, said Kandula would be “remembered as a stellar student and a delightful and effervescent human being” loved by friends for “her bubbly laugh, sense of humor and infectious personality.”
