On Jan. 23, 2023, Jaahnavi Kandula, a student at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus, was fatally hit by a police car going 74 mph on a 25 mph road. Kandula, who was working to support her single mother back in India, was crossing the sidewalk.
According to CNN the officer (Kevin Dave) was responding to the incident and did not have his sirens on. According to Impact, an online news agency, Kandula was “launched 138 feet.”
According to an Instagram Reel from “Popshift,” body-cam footage showed the reaction of a policeman (David Auderer) who was traveling to the site of the incident, and the response was horrifying. He said that Kandula was “a regular person” with “limited value.” He also said that the city should “just write a check” for “$11,000” and that “she was 26 anyway.”
According to NYT, he even laughed between words and eventually stopped the recording. At this point, there is no evidence that the remarks made by Auderer were racially motivated or based on gender, and no charges have been filed on either of the police officers.
This incident has angered many individuals and protests have swept certain parts of the country, especially Seattle, WA where the incident occurred. According to Komo News, on Sept. 14 in the streets of Seattle, a protest was organized. People held signs reading “I have unlimited value,” and “Justice for Jaahnavi.”
This is not the first time that injustice towards citizens has happened at the hands of law enforcement. This has occurred across our country and has undeniably caused many people to question our police’s power and judiciary system. Kandula’s death is the latest in a long list of a broader issue. It is only now that we have the technology to show proof that discrimination exists in our society and that we can take a stand to call for justice and be heard.
Although there are unjust police officers in our society, we must look at the just ones too. According to Impact, Other police officers who worked in the same station as Auderer found the body cam footage and submitted the recording to a higher authority.
Since the incident, Auderer has responded and said that in the body-cam footage, he was mocking lawyers and how he thought the case would play out in court. He said he was laughing at how ridiculous the lawyers in the scenario would be.
Even if it was true that he was mocking lawyers, shouldn’t Auderer have been sad when saying these things? Why would he laugh if he thought that the justice of Jaahnavi Kandula would not be served? And why did he turn off the camera if he supposedly wasn’t even talking bad about Kandula, but rather lawyers? There are also additional questions being asked, including why it took six months for this news to be released to the public.
As a society, we must come forward and take a stand against authority taking advantage of their power. We can educate police and authority in our community to be more empathetic and kinder to citizens.
Authority is meant to save and protect us, not kill and laugh about it, even if it was an accident. In our nation, no one is oppressed on paper, but a law is only as good as it is followed. As long as oppression exists, there will be those who fight to bring justice to the oppressed. It is important for students at East to help shape a community in which we are all loved by each other and respected despite our differences.
