Police panel: US cop be put on unpaid leave

PTI

Seattle, September 21

The Seattle Community Police Commission has recommended to the city police chief to relieve from duty and withhold pay for an officer under investigation for joking about and downplaying the death of a 23-year-old Indian student when an overspeeding police car driven by another officer struck her.

Jaahnavi Kandula was hit by a police vehicle driven by officer Kevin Dave when she was crossing a street on January 23. He was driving at 74 mph (more than 119 kmh).

The 21-member commission and its three appointed co-chairs on Wednesday also asked Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz to “immediately engage in a workgroup” made up of the Community Police Commission (CPC), the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) and the Office of Inspector General to “address repeated concerns with the culture of policing and police practices at Seattle Police Department, the Seattle Times reported.

Wednesday’s letter calls on Diaz to suspend without pay officer Daniel Auderer, vice-president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), who came under investigation earlier this month after department officials listened to audio from Auderer’s body camera during an investigation into the death of Kandula, a student who was struck and killed by a speeding police vehicle in January.

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