Attorney and family of man killed in chase respond after DC officers pardoned by Trump
President Donald Trump delivered on his promise to pardon two D.C. police officers that were convicted in connection with a 2020 chase that left a man riding a moped dead.
Both Lt. Andrew Zabavsky and officer Terence Sutton received “full and unconditional” pardons on Wednesday afternoon.
“We’re very appreciative that he’s finally achieved what a status of innocence that never should have been jeopardized or in question over these past five years,” said Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon.
Sutton was accused of chasing 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown in his police cruiser after he spotted Hylton-Brown driving a moped, helmetless and on a sidewalk in the Brightwood Park area of Northwest D.C. The chase spanned over 10 blocks and ended in a crash that would later kill Hylton-Brown.
Both Sutton and Zabavsky were accused and convicted of trying to cover up what took place, with Sutton being found guilty on the most serious charge of second-degree murder.
Sutton was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, with Zabavsky receiving four years behind bars.
Hannon said with the pardon, he believes the next U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia will have to ask the court to vacate the federal conviction.
The District’s police union announced the decision to pardon the officers on X.
“Officer Sutton was wrongly charged by corrupt prosecutors for doing his job. This action rights an incredible wrong that not only harmed Officer Sutton but also crippled the ability for the department to function,” the union said.
David L. Shurtz, who is representing Amaala Jones-Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s daughter, was disappointed by the pardons. Jones-Bey filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the department and the officers involved.
“To her, it’s blatant racism,” Shurtz said of Jones-Bey’s response to the pardons.
He claims the case clearly showed “corruption” in the police department, and that this will result in no accountability for what happened to Hylton-Brown.
“It’s just this incredible corruption that everybody has ignored, and Donald Trump is making it even worse,” Shurtz said. “If you can go into a corrupt world and then put your thumb on the scale and change justice, that’s really a sad commentary on the justice in the District of Columbia, because the police department is so corrupt.”
Since Trump’s pardon does not remove the conviction from the officer’s records, Shurtz believes the family’s civil suit can move forward. But, with the pardons, he said it put them in “’Brave New World’ territory.”
“There may be the sympathy card if they (the officers) get up there and say, ‘well, I’ve been pardoned, because I really didn’t do anything wrong, and it was all just a big mistake, and it was prejudice,’” Shurtz said.
The family was originally seeking $100 million, and Shurtz said they plan to continue to seek a “significant amount” of monetary damages.
“I have no idea if it’s going to be small change or if it’s going to be a large amount, but it won’t be, because we’re not asking,” he said.
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