President Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown during a pursuit.
Hylton-Brown, a 20-year-old Black man, died in October 2020 as he was being chased by police officer Terence Sutton Jr. Hylton-Brown was riding a moped that was hit by a motorist uninvolved in the chase—but a jury found that Sutton caused his death “by driving a police vehicle in conscious disregard for an extreme risk of death or serious bodily injury,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Sutton was found guilty of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice by a federal jury in September 2024, receiving a 66-month prison term.
His supervisor, Andrew Zabavsky, was also sentenced to 48 months in prison by the same jury after he was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice.
The court found that the pair conspired to hide the circumstances of the crash from officials. “As Mr. Hylton-Brown lay unconscious in the street in a pool of his own blood, Sutton and Zabavsky agreed to cover up what Sutton had done to prevent any further investigation of the incident,” according to prosecutors.
The incident—which happened amid mass protests over the killing of George Floyd five months earlier—led to civil unrest in Washington, D.C., beginning outside the 4th District police station where Sutton and Zabavsky worked.
Protesters broke windows in the station and damaged police cars parked outside, and police fired pepper pellets and threw stun grenades. Four officers were were injured in the clashes, authorities said.
Trump repeatedly made references to potential pardons for the officers following his inauguration this week. On Tuesday, he appeared to allude to the case when asked if his decision to grant clemency to those convicted of violent crimes in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol signalled that it was acceptable to assault officers.
“No, the opposite. In fact, I’m going to be letting two officers from Washington police, D.C.—I believe they’re from D.C.—but I just approved it,” Trump said, without disclosing what had been approved. “They were arrested, put in jail for five years, because they went after an illegal, and I guess something happened where something went wrong and they arrested the two officers and put them in jail for going after a criminal. A rough criminal, by the way.”
Court records do not show any adult felony cases against Hylton-Brown, according to The Washington Post, and police said he was a U.S. citizen.
David L. Shurtz, a lawyer for Amaala Jones-Bey—the mother of Hylton-Brown’s child—told the Post that Hylton-Brown was “a 100 percent American-born young Black man” and slammed the pardons as “outrageous, especially with Sutton,” given his murder conviction.
“By their actions afterward, the cover-up, it’s implicit that they knew they were guilty,” Shurtz added.
Karen Hylton, Hylton-Brown’s mother, told CNN that she cried when she learned of the potential pardons and wrote a letter to Trump on Tuesday asking him not to do it.
Sutton and Zabavsky’s attorneys both thanked Trump for their pardons.
The D.C. Police Union also welcomed the move, writing in a statement on X that Sutton’s pardon “rights an incredible wrong.”
The same union on Monday expressed “dismay” at Trump’s decision to include rioters who assaulted officers in his sweeping clemency for about 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capital on Jan 6. 2020.
The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest U.S. police union—which endorsed Trump in the election—and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, also released a joint statement saying they were “deeply discouraged” by Trump’s pardon of Jan 6. rioters.
“The IACP and FOP firmly believe that those convicted of such crimes should serve their full sentences,” it read.
