In memory of Jaahnavi Kandula—and everyone failed by a broken system.
23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula stepped into a crosswalk in Seattle.
She never made it to the other side.
She was hit—struck by a Seattle police officer driving 74 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone. No continuous siren. No chance. The impact threw her 138 feet.
And just like that, her future was gone.
Gone was a young woman pursuing her graduate degree. Gone was a daughter, a friend, a life full of purpose. And what did she get in return? A traffic fine. A shrug from the justice system. A comment caught on camera—“she had limited value.”
Let that sink in.
A uniform and a badge gave someone permission to value her life. And they valued it at zero.
This is where the rage sets in.
Because in any other job, in any other world, if you fail to do what you were hired to do, you're held accountable. If you harm someone—you’re out. If you kill someone through negligence—you go to court.
But in America, the rules bend for the powerful. They bend even more for those whose job is to enforce power.
And if your work brings harm to the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the ones this country never meant to protect? You don’t get punished. Sometimes, you get a bonus.
Let’s talk about value.
This country is obsessed with capital. Money, productivity, performance—it drives everything. We measure worth in wages. In output. In profit margins.
So how is it that someone can take a life, face no real consequence, and keep cashing checks from the very system that paid them to protect?
How is a life so easily written off—unless that life was never meant to be counted in the first place?
Let’s be honest:
This isn't a “mistake.”
This isn’t “an unfortunate tragedy.”
This is what the system was built to do.
To protect itself.
To minimize the value of anyone it was never designed to serve.
To dismiss outrage with press statements, and bury the truth beneath “procedure.”
And while the badge might protect the body, the uniform protects the institution. And the institution protects itself—at the cost of our lives, our families, our futures.
So I ask like Dr. King did, in a voice heavy with history:
HOW LONG?
How long will our tears be dried by time instead of justice?
How long will our bodies be policed while theirs are protected?
How long will we sit quietly, watching another name join the list of the forgotten—Jaahnavi, Tyre, Sandra, Tamir, Breonna, Philando, Elijah…?
How long until we stop pretending the system is broken, and start admitting—it’s working exactly how it was designed?
Jaahnavi’s life had value.
It had meaning.
She deserved to walk safely.
To graduate.
To live.
We won’t let her become another footnote.
We will remember.
We will mourn.
But we will also hold the line.
Because we are not disposable.
We are not mistakes.
We are not “limited value.”
We are people.
And our lives will be accounted for.
