New Delhi: Daniel Auderer, a Seattle police officer who was heard joking following the death of 23-year-old Indian woman Jaahnavi Kandula, has been “administratively reassigned to a non-operational position”, the Seattle Times quoted local police as saying.Kandula, a student at Northeastern University’s Seattle campus, died in January this year upon being hit by a car driven by Kevin Dave, another Seattle police officer.An investigation into the incident determined that Dave was driving at 119 km/h – close to 80 km/h over the speed limit – while on the way to a drug overdose scene, soon after which he hit Kandula, the Seattle Times reported.Daniel Auderer had arrived at the scene as a drug recognition expert to determine if Dave had been impaired.A bodycam he was wearing at the time recorded him laughing and joking about Kandula’s death soon after.“No, it’s a regular person … Yeah, just a write a cheque … [laughs] Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value,” Auderer is heard saying in bodycam footage uploaded by the Seattle Times.He also misstated the speed of Dave’s car when it hit Kandula as 80 km/h, when it was actually 101 km/h, news agency AP reported.Auderer was also vice president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild. He was quoted saying the above while on a call with the guild’s president.A Seattle police employee reported Auderer’s conversation to a department lawyer when they viewed it as part of an investigation into the incident, the Times reported.Following this, a local police accountability body began an investigation into the matter.Local prosecutors are reviewing the case and considering whether to pursue charges against Kevin Dave, the Times reported.India’s consulate in San Francisco said earlier this month that the media reports about the “handling” of Kandula’s death were “deeply troubling”.“We have taken up the matter strongly with local authorities in Seattle & Washington State as well as senior officials in Washington DC,” it said on X (formerly Twitter).Auderer has since said that his bodycam footage was being taken out of context and claimed that he was mocking how lawyers would try and minimise liability for Kandula’s death.“I intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers – I was imitating what a lawyer tasked with negotiating the case would be saying and being sarcastic to express that they shouldn’t be coming up with crazy arguments to minimise the payment,” he said in a letter to the police accountability body earlier this month.