Trump pardons two DC officers convicted in deadly pursuit and cover-up

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued full and unconditional pardons to two Washington, D.C., police officers who were convicted for their roles in a deadly moped chase of a young man in 2020 and a subsequent cover-up, a case that led to demonstrations in the Capital of Nations.

Trump granted clemency to Metropolitan Police Department officer Terence Sutton, who was sentenced in September to more than five years in prison. He faced a District of Columbia charge of second-degree murder, and federal charges of conspiracy to commit obstruction and obstruction of justice in the unauthorized 2020 theoctor chase that killed Karon Hylton-Brown , 20 years old. Sutton was the first DC police officer to be convicted of murder for conduct on duty.

The same jury that found Sutton guilty also convicted Andrew Zabavsky, a lieutenant who supervised Sutton, of conspiracy to commit obstruction and obstruction of justice. Zabavsky was sentenced to four years in prison. He was not charged with the more serious charge of second-degree murder. Trump granted Zabavsky clemency.

Both men had been free pending the outcome of their appeals.

Trump had hinted at plans to pardon them after his inauguration.

They were arrested, put in prison for five years because they went after an illegal, Trump said Tuesday. And I guess something happened where something went wrong, and they arrested the two officers and put them in jail for chasing a criminal.

Hylton-Brown was a U.S. citizen, said David Shurtz, an attorney representing his estate.

The D.C. police union praised Trumps decision, saying in a statement that Sutton was wrongly indicted by corrupt prosecutors for doing his job.

This right action was an incredible wrong that not only harmed Officer Sutton, but also crippled the department's ability to operate, the union said.

The union expressed dismay a day earlier after Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those who attacked law enforcement officers. laws.

The Metropolitan Police Department thanked Trump “for standing by his officers after the Sutton-Zabavsky pardons, adding in a statement that the prosecutions were literally unprecedented.

Never before in any other jurisdiction in the country has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect, the department said.

On the night of October 23, 2020, months after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, widespread protests against police brutality and racial injustice, Sutton used a police car to chase Hylton-Brown, who was driving a moped without a helmet on a northwest Washington sidewalk, prosecutors said.

Hylton-Brown ignored Suttons trying to arrest him and left. Sutton chased Hylton-Brown for more than 10 blocks at unreasonable speeds, prosecutors said, and, at one point, drove down a one-way street. Sutton followed Hylton-Brown into a narrow alley, turned off her cars' emergency lights and siren and sped off. When Hylton-Brown left the alley, he was struck by another vehicle, according to prosecutors.

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 further investigation into the incident, prosecutors said in a communicated in September.

Officers allowed the driver whose car hit Hylton-Brown to leave the scene within 20 minutes of the crash, then turned off his body-worn cameras, spoke privately and left, prosecutors said.

Sutton drove his police cruiser directly to the crash site, audibly crushing debris from the collision as he left, prosecutors said, and none of the officers contacted the departments' main crash unit or its police division. internal affairs for each investigation initiated.

They also misled their commander about the severity of the crash, denying that a police chase had even occurred and failed to mention Hylton-Browns' critical injuries, prosecutors said. Prosecutors say Zabavsky also falsely implied that Hylton-Brown had been drunk and that Sutton wrote a false police report.

Hylton-Brown suffered severe head trauma and died two days later.

The jury in that case found the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for their roles in the murder of Karon Hylton Brown and a related cover-up, saying what happened here was a serious crime, the prosecutor said. At the time, Matthew M. Graves, said in September after the officers were convicted. Public safety requires public trust. Crimes like this erode trust and are a disservice to the community and the thousands of officers who work incredibly hard, within the bounds of the Constitution, to protect us.

The case sparked days of protests outside a police station in Washington.

Shurtz, the attorney representing Hylton-Browns' relatives, said Trumps' decision was outrageous and wrong.

I'm one of the worst decisions Trump has ever made, he said. And I think he is misguided.

Shurtz believes police unions influenced the decision for officers to receive pardons.

Zabavskys' attorney, Christopher Zampogna, said in a statement that his client thanks President Trump for issuing his unconditional pardon. J. Michael Hannon, an attorney for Suttons, did not immediately return a request for comment.

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