Author: Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned two Washington police officers convicted in 2020 of killing a 20-year-old black man named Karon Hylton-Brown, the White House said.
In September 2024, Terence Sutton Jr was sentenced to 66 months in prison, while Andrew Zabavsky was sentenced to 48 months in prison for “an unlicensed police pursuit that resulted in a crash on October 23, 2020, that caused the death of Karon Hylton-Brown, 20, in Northwest Washington, DC,” the Justice Department said last year. The officers remained at large pending the outcome of their appeals.
The Metropolitan Police Department said Sutton, in his early 40s, and Zabavsky, in his mid-50s, were on “indefinite suspension without pay, pending our administrative action.”
Sutton was found guilty by a unanimous federal jury in late 2022, after a nine-week trial, of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice. The same jury found Zabavski guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruct justice.
The jury found that Sutton caused Hylton-Brown’s death by driving the police vehicle in “conscious disregard” because of the extreme risk of death or serious bodily injury to Hylton-Brown.
Sutton and Zabavsky were also found to have conspired to conceal from officers the circumstances of the traffic accident that led to Hylton-Brown’s death.
The DC police union has sought clemency for the two officers.
Sutton’s attorney, Kellen Dwyer, said in a statement cited by CNN that while he and his client were “confident that the DC Circuit would overturn this conviction, we are thrilled that President Trump has ended this prosecution once and for all.” Zabavski’s lawyer, Christopher Zampogna, also thanked Trump.
Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, told CNN before the announcement that she was shocked and cried when she learned of the potential pardons.
The incident happened a few months after the murder of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. The killing led to protests against police brutality and racial inequality in the US and around the world.
After taking office on Monday, Trump pardoned about 1,500 of his supporters who attacked the US Capitol four years ago on January 6, 2021. Among those pardoned were some who attacked police officers.
The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the US that has backed Trump in the 2024 election, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police said in a joint statement that they were “deeply disheartened” by the pardon.
