Seattle Police Department Updates Its Emergency Driving Policy
Pressure to make the policy less vague has been building since an officer struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula while driving 74 mph on a residential street last year.
By Andrew Engelson
In mid-October, the Seattle Police Department released new emergency vehicle operations (EVO) policies that instruct officers to “drive no faster than their skill and training allows and [what] is reasonably necessary to safely arrive at the scene.” The new rules were a belated response to community outrage after an SPD officer, Kevin Dave, struck and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula in a South Lake Union crosswalk while driving 74 mph.
The new guidelines also advise officers to consider specific factors before deciding whether to break speed limits or traffic laws when responding to emergencies – including the priority level of the call, whether pedestrians can see and respond to an officer’s vehicle, the “character of the location (i.e. freeway vs. side street)” and weather and road conditions.
The new emergency driving policy now more closely aligns with SPD’s pursuit policy, which directs officers to pay attention to various factors before deciding whether to pursue a subject. SPD’s previous policy was extremely vague and gave little specific guidance to officers about when they can engage in emergency driving other than “where there is a legitimate concern for the preservation of life” and “only when the need outweighs the risk.”
Nearly two years after Kandula was killed, SPD finalized the policy after members of Seattle’s Indian American community and the Community Police Commission (CPC) demanded changes.
Joel Merkel, a co-chair of the CPC, was encouraged by the new policies, which he said incorporated some of the CPC’s suggestions. “I appreciate the requirement that officers are not supposed to drive any faster or more dangerously than is reasonably necessary to get to the call safely,” Merkel said. “These are all positive developments that make the policy much less vague, a lot more clear, and provide some safeguards to ensure that emergency responses are safer and that there can be some accountability when they’re not.”
SPD did not make one change the CPC requested—specific restrictions on how fast officers can drive in an emergency, such as a certain amount over the legal speed limit. SPD chief operating officer Brian Maxey said specific limits would put additional burdens on officers trying to assess the risks and require them to "perform calculations in real time, which presents additional distractions."
According to Maxey, the new policy restates previous guidance to officers to balance the risk of the response against the urgency of the call – but now spells out what factors increase those risks. “Consistent with recommendations from the CPC, the new policy sets out some specific criteria to consider under the totality of the circumstances faced by an emergency driver,” Maxey said.
Maxey said all sworn officers will be trained on the new policy. “The plan is to update the entire department on high-speed emergency driving in 2025,” he said. “That will provide a skills refresher, but will be guided by the policy.”
Merkel said training will be critical in implementing SPD’s new policy. “The type of driving that is contemplated by officers in emergency responses is far beyond the capabilities of the average citizen,” he said. “So there absolutely must be robust training to ensure that when officers are responding to an emergency, they have those skills necessary to do it safely.”
The CPC expressed concerns last year that SPD does not have a dedicated facility for training (in the past, it has contracted with a racetrack in Kent as a training site).
Merkel also noted that the new policy instructs officers to use lights and sirens during emergency responses, with only a few exceptions. The previous policy only directed officers to use “audible signals” (such as chirps rather than ongoing sirens) and had no explicit recommendations about when to use emergency lights.
“I think the new policy makes it clear that that's the default,” Merkel said. “You should be using your lights and sirens, and turning them off is the exception.” Dave had his lights on but was only chirping his siren at intersections before he hit Kandula.
Whether the new policy will lead to stronger discipline for officers who drive at excessive or dangerous speeds is an open question. Dave is still on SPD’s payroll and so far has only received a traffic ticket for the incident. According to an analysis of GPS data acquired by PubliCola, SPD officers frequently drive at excessive and dangerous speeds, often when they aren’t even responding to an emergency.
The new policy says officers should not disregard the safety of others during emergency driving, “nor is the sworn employee protected from the consequences of their reckless disregard for the safety of others.”
Though Merkel said he was skeptical that SPD officers will now face stronger discipline for unsafe driving, he does believe the new policy spells out what officers need to consider to improve safety. “With a clearer rule and a clearer standard, it is much easier to hold an officer accountable when the rule or standard is violated," Merkel said. "If it's a vague policy, a vague standard, it becomes much more difficult to enforce accountability. So because the rule has become clearer, I think it does make accountability easier.”