President Donald Trump came through on his word and pardoned two D.C. police officers who were found guilty in a 2020 incident where a man on a moped lost his life during a chase. On Wednesday afternoon, both Lt. Andrew Zabavsky and Officer Terence Sutton were granted “full and unconditional” pardons.
Sutton was in the hot seat for chasing down 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown in his police cruiser after spotting him riding a moped without a helmet and cruising on the sidewalk in Brightwood Park, Northwest D.C. The pursuit stretched over 10 blocks and ended in a crash that tragically took Hylton-Brown’s life. Both Sutton and Zabavsky faced serious charges for allegedly trying to cover up the incident, with Sutton ultimately being convicted of the most severe charge: second-degree murder. He got hit with a sentence of five and a half years in prison, while Zabavsky was sentenced to four years behind bars.
David L. Shurtz, the attorney for Amaala Jones-Bey, who is the mother of Hylton-Brown’s daughter, expressed his disappointment over the pardons. In 2021, Jones-Bey took action by filing a lawsuit against the police department and the officers involved in the case. “To her, this is just blatant racism,” Shurtz said, reflecting Jones-Bey’s feelings about the pardons. He argued that the case highlighted a clear “corruption” within the police department and warned that these pardons mean there will be 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 doesn’t wipe the conviction from the officers’ records, Shurtz feels confident that the family’s civil suit can still press on. However, he mentioned that with these pardons, they’re now in “’Brave New World’ territory,” suggesting a situation that feels unsettling and uncertain.
“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 initially aimed for $100 million, and Shurtz indicated that they’re still committed to pursuing a “significant amount” in monetary damages moving forward.
