In Media Blast, SPD Calls PubliCola's Post On Auderer's Appearance at Major Police Convention "Inaccurate."

We stand by our story.

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Police Department put up an unusual blog post on Wednesday purportedly correcting "inaccurate media reports" that SPD officer Daniel Auderer would be representing the department at a conference hosted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Washington, D.C., later this year. "Auderer never requested, nor was he approved to do so by the Seattle Police Department," the blog post says.

The post, which SPD also distributed to local media via email blast, referred to (but did not link or identify) a brief piece that ran in PubliCola last week, when we reported that Auderer will be hosting a panel at the conference along with another SPD officer, Tom Heller, focused on using "human psychology" to get accurate information out of suspects, victims, and bystanders.

Auderer, the vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, was caught on body-worn video joking with SPOG president Mike Solan about the death of 23-year-old pedestrian Jaahanvi Kandula, who had been struck and killed by SPD officer Kevin Dave earlier that night. 

As we reported last week, SPD initially responded to a list of questions with an email that said, in its entirety, "We don’t have any further updates or information concerning Auderer other than what has previously been provided.”

After our story posted, SPD spokesman Brian Pritchard called us up to say Auderer was not "representing" SPD at the conference and had not requested paid time off or reimbursement for his expenses, and claimed "he's not representing" the department. We added this information to our story. 

Unfortunately, Pritchard did not offer a substantive response to any of the other questions we asked him on the phone, including: Why the IACP, a large and well-established law enforcement group, listed Auderer and Heller as SPD representatives; why SPD has not demanded that the IACP remove the department affiliation from Auderer's workshop; and whether SPD has asked Auderer not to lead the workshop.

We stand by our story, which follows in full below.

Daniel Auderer, the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president who was caught on tape joking with SPOG president Mike Solan about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old student who was killed last year when SPD officer Kevin Dave struck her in a crosswalk while driving 74 miles an hour, was reassigned to low-profile office duties while the Office of Police Accountability investigates multiple complaints against him.

Despite Auderer’s notoriety, he will appear on a national stage in August, when he will be one of two speakers from the Seattle Police Department at national traffic safety conference put on by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Washington, D.C.

UPDATE: After this post published, a spokesman for SPD contacted PubliCola to say that Auderer is not “representing” the department at the conference, but could not explain why Auderer and another officer, Tom Heller, are listed on the IACP’s program as Seattle Police Department representatives. The spokesman said SPD is not paying for Auderer to travel to or appear at the conference and did not receive a request for him to attend the conference and speak.

According to the program for the IACP’s Impaired Driving and Traffic Safety Conference, Auderer will lead a workshop called “Becoming a Pickup Artist: How to Get More Out of Interviews,” where he’ll teach other officers how to get accurate information out of crime victims, witnesses, and suspects “using only the power of human psychology.”

“From the roadside to the interrogation room, learn how to use human memory, perception, and motivation to improve investigations,” the panel description promises.

Asked about Auderer’s D.C. appearance and his current assignment within the department, a spokesperson said, “We don’t have any further updates or information concerning Auderer other than what has previously been provided.”