SEATTLE — The Seattle police officer who was heard joking and making insensitive comments about a woman's death has been reassigned.
The Seattle Police Department announced Thursday that Officer Daniel Auderer "has been administratively re-assigned to a non-operational position."
On Jan. 23, Auderer was dispatched to assist with a collision after another officer, on his way to an emergency, struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula.
Kandula was walking through a crosswalk and was hit by an officer going 63 miles per hour in a 25 mile-per-hour zone.
In the body camera footage, Auderer, who was not involved in the January collision, was captured in the video saying, "but she is dead" and laughing while on the phone.
"She was 26 anyway," Auderer said in the video. "She had limited value."
After that comment, he said the city should just write a check for $11,000.
Auderer is the vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, the largest law enforcement labor union in the Northwest.
After the bodycam video was brought to light, Auderer wrote a letter to the Office of Police Accountability where he explained he was not making fun of the death but instead mocking the callousness of the legal system.
The statements incited outrage and brought national and international attention to the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and Kandula's death. The investigation into the officer who killed Kandula is still ongoing.
In a statement to KING 5 earlier this month, Kandula's family said, "It's truly disturbing and saddening to hear comments on the bodycam video regarding Jaahnavi's death from an SPD officer. Jaahnavi is a beloved daughter and beyond any dollar value for her mother & family. We firmly believe that every human life is invaluable and should not be belittled, especially during a tragic loss."