SEATTLE — Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz is finally answering questions about a shocking body camera video showing an officer mocking the death of an Indian woman moments after she was hit and killed by an SPD Cruiser back in January.
Chief Diaz said Officer Dan Auderer, the officer in the video and Vice President of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, has been assigned to a non-operational position and is not on patrol at this time, while the Office of Police Accountability investigates. Chief Diaz said he couldn’t directly comment on the case, but he understands the impact that video has had on the community.
“I’ve been meeting with the Indian community, the South Asian communities, and having extensive conversations and really listening sessions,” Chief Diaz said.
We asked Chief Diaz if would he comply with whatever punishment is recommended by the Office of Police Accountability. He said he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself when it comes to the investigation.
“My job is once there is an exact sustained finding, that I then become the final arbitrator of the discipline,” Chief Diaz said.
Chief Diaz said both SPOG and other officers raised their concerns about the software and why they felt they were being watched at all times.
“Even in this case, we wouldn’t have used it in that matter. We are focused on using it as an aggregate system to actually be able to train our officers better in de-escalation,” Chief Diaz said.
Chief Diaz held a press conference about the arrests of several men in connection to a string of home invasion robberies in South Seattle on Wednesday. But during that press conference, we learned that SPD canceled its contract with the company that analyzes their body camera video, Truelo, not long after this incident was caught on camera. But Co-Chair of the Community Police Commission, Joel Merkel, told us the timing of the canceled contract is concerning.
He told us in a statement:
The timing of SPD canceling the Truelo contract - So soon after Det. Auderer and Mike Solan were recorded laughing about the death of a pedestrian killed by SPD - is certainly concerning and SPD must provide full transparency on the decision. To the extent a SPOG labor relations concern was raised, the community needs to understand what provision of the contract was cited. This is the same SPOG contract that the CPC objected to before the City approved it in 2018. That SPOG raised a labor complaint is another example of how the SPOG contract gets in the way of transparency and accountability. - Co-Chair of the Community Police Commission, Joel Merkel
When it comes to Truelo, Chief Diaz did say they could still work with them in the future, but that still has yet to be determined.
We have repeatedly asked SPOG to go on the record about the other side of that conversation caught on the body camera video, but we haven’t heard back.
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