Update on Officer Involved Collision Case
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has hired a collision reconstruction firm, ACES, Inc, (Aces), to review all material in the case involving Seattle Police Officer Kevin Dave that caused the January 2023 death of Jaahnavi Kandula.
Video and materials submitted to our office by police investigators have been sent to Aces. In addition to reviewing that video and applicable state laws, the firm may do measurements and dynamic scene reconstruction. At the end of their review process, Aces is expected to send the KCPAO a report of their findings. Prosecutors from the Felony Traffic Unit and our Criminal Division plan to review that report as part of our charging decision. Having an outside expert analysis of the criminal investigation materials will help inform our pending charging decision.
The materials were sent to the firm on September 21, 2023. We do not have a specific timeline for the firm’s review, though we anticipate it will take several additional weeks to complete the review. Questions about the review process may still be referred to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Aces is a firm that has worked on other felony traffic cases; its work is well respected by prosecutors and defense attorneys and civil attorneys alike. We anticipate the pending report being available through public disclosure when it has been reviewed as part of our charging decision, and we will be transparent about the next steps of the process. The cost of the expert review depends on the number of hours spent on the video and evidence review, and additional hours for steps such and crash scene reconstruction. This particular case has several hours of video. We anticipate the final cost may be between $3,000 and $6,000. That cost estimate is in line with private collision reconstruction experts.
The case involving Officer Kevin Dave — who is a different person than the officer from the body-worn video (Officer Daniel Auderer) — is the case being reviewed here. By law, an investigation into the conduct on Officer Daniel Auderer’s body-worn video is not completed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The Office of Police Accountability is responsible for establishing and managing processes to initiate, receive, classify, and investigate individual allegations of SPD employee misconduct. The conduct in the body-worn video involving Officer Daniel Auderer falls under that purview. OPA investigations can be tracked online here through the City of Seattle. The case number into Daniel Auderer’s body-worn video is 2023OPA-0336.
We don’t anticipate having an update until November. The next update may be as simple as saying the review and charging decision is still pending. But when the KCPAO makes a decision relating to the collision that has been referred to us involving Officer Kevin Dave and Ms. Kandula we will share that information with the public.
