Two Washington, D.C., police officers who were found guilty of their involvement in the 2020 cover-up and murderous pursuit of a young man on a moped—a case that sparked protests in the nation’s capital—were granted complete and unconditional pardons by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
Officer Terence Sutton of the Metropolitan Police Department, who was given a sentence of more than five years in prison in September, was granted clemency by Trump. In the October 2020 unlawful pursuit that killed 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, he was charged with second-degree murder in the District of Columbia and conspiracy to impede and obstruction of justice in the federal court. As a result of his actions while on duty, Sutton became the first police officer in D.C. to be found guilty of murder.
Andrew Zabavsky, a lieutenant who oversaw Sutton, was also found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice by the same jury that found Sutton guilty. Zabavsky received a four-year prison sentence. The more serious charge of second-degree murder was not brought against him. Zabavsky received clemency from Trump.
Both individuals had been at liberty while their appeals were being processed.
Following his inauguration, Trump has made hints about his intention to pardon them.
Trump stated on Tuesday that they were detained and imprisoned for five years for pursuing an illegal. And I suppose that something went awry, because they arrested the two officers and imprisoned them for pursuing a criminal.
In an interview Thursday evening, Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, stated that her son was an American citizen. According to her, he was born in Washington, D.C., on February 29, 2000.
According to Hylton, she wrote to Trump on Tuesday, requesting that he not pardon Sutton and Zabavsky. In the letter, she also expressed her belief that racism was the reason of her son’s death and requested Trump to consider the case before rendering a decision. She shared a copy of the letter with NBC News. A request for comment Thursday night was not immediately answered by a White House official.
In a statement, the D.C. Police Union applauded Trump’s decision, claiming that corrupt prosecutors had falsely accused Sutton for carrying out his duties.
According to the union, this conduct committed an amazing injustice that not only hurt Officer Sutton but also seriously impairs the department’s capacity to operate.
After Trump pardoned more than 1,500 individuals indicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those who attacked law enforcement officials, the union voiced its displeasure the day before.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police Department said that the prosecutions were “literally unprecedented” and praised Trump “for supporting its officers after the Sutton-Zabavsky pardons.”
According to the agency, no other jurisdiction in the nation has ever charged a police officer with second-degree murder for following a suspect.
Prosecutors said that Sutton used a police car to chase Hylton-Brown, who was riding a moped without a helmet on a sidewalk in northwest Washington, on the evening of October 23, 2020, months after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis had sparked massive demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality.
Sutton tried to stop Hylton-Brown, but he drove away. Prosecutors claimed that Sutton repeatedly drove in the wrong direction on a one-way street while pursuing Hylton-Brown for over ten blocks at excessive speeds. Sutton sped up, turned off his car’s siren and emergency lights, and followed Hylton-Brown into a small alley. Prosecutors claim that Hylton-Brown was hit by another car as he was leaving the alley.
Prosecutors claimed in a statement in September that Sutton and Zabavsky had decided to conceal Sutton’s actions in order to stop any additional investigation into the incident while Mr. Hylton-Brown lay unconscious in the street in a pool of his own blood.
According to prosecutors, the police turned off their body-worn cameras, had a private conversation, and then left after letting the driver of the vehicle that hit Hylton-Brown leave the scene within 20 minutes of the collision.
Prosecutors said that Sutton drove his police vehicle straight over the scene of the incident, noisily crushing pieces of debris as he went, and that neither officer called the department’s Internal Affairs Division or Major Crash Unit to start an inquiry.
According to prosecutors, they allegedly misled their commanding officer about the seriousness of the collision, denying that there had been a police pursuit at all and failing to reveal Hylton-Brown’s serious injuries. Prosecutors also claim that Sutton wrote a fabricated police report and that Zabavsky falsely claimed that Hylton-Brown had been intoxicated.
Two days after suffering severe head injuries, Hylton-Brown passed away.
After the officers were sentenced in September, then-U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves stated that the case was a severe crime since the jury found the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of their roles in the murder of Karon Hylton Brown and a related cover-up. Public trust is necessary for public safety. The community and the thousands of officers who put in a great deal of effort, within the parameters of the Constitution, to keep us secure are harmed by crimes like these, which also undermine that trust.
Days of protests outside a Washington police station were sparked by the case.
The lawyer for Hylton-Brown’s estate, David Shurtz, called Trump’s choice “ludicrous and misguided.”
According to him, it’s among the worst choices Trump has ever made. And I think he’s making a mistake.
Shurtz thinks the decision to pardon the cops was influenced by police unions.
In a statement, Zabavsky’s lawyer, Christopher Zampogna, expressed gratitude to President Trump for his unconditional pardon. A request for comment from Sutton’s lawyer, J. Michael Hannon, was not immediately answered.