Trump Pardons Two Washington Police Officers Found Guilty of Killing a Black Man

Two police officers found guilty of killing a Black man in Washington have been pardoned by President Trump.

According to the White House, US President Donald Trump pardoned two police officers in Washington on Wednesday who were found guilty of killing 20-year-old Black man Karon Hylton-Brown in 2020.

In September 2024, Andrew Zabavsky received a 48-month term and Terence Sutton Jr. received a 66-month sentence for their roles in an illegal police pursuit that resulted in a deadly crash in Northwest Washington, D.C., on October 23, 2020. The cops were free to appeal their convictions, according to the Justice Department.

Sutton, who is in his early 40s, and Zabavsky, who is in his mid-50s, were placed on “indefinite suspension without pay, pending our administration process,” according to the Metropolitan Police Department. After a nine-week trial, a unanimous federal jury found Sutton guilty in late 2022 of second-degree murder, conspiracy to impede, and obstruction of justice.

Zabavsky was convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct.

The jury found that Hylton-Brown died as a result of Sutton’s careless driving during the police chase, demonstrating “conscious disregard” for the possibility of injury. It was also discovered that Sutton and Zabavsky had colluded to conceal the crash’s specifics from authorities.

The DC Police Union had submitted a request for both officers to be pardoned.

Kellen Dwyer, Sutton’s lawyer, praised Trump’s decision to close the case but expressed confidence that the D.C. Circuit would have reversed the conviction. Christopher Zampogna, Zabavsky’s lawyer, also expressed gratitude to the president.

Karen Hylton, Hylton-Brown’s mother, expressed her surprise and grief at learning of the possible pardons.

The lawsuit took place months after George Floyd’s death, which set forth protests against racial injustice and police brutality around the world. Trump’s decision to pardon Sutton and Zabavsky comes after he made a contentious decision earlier this week to pardon over 1,500 participants in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, some of whom had beaten police officers.

In a joint statement, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police, the biggest police union in the United States and a Trump backer in the 2024 election, expressed their “deeply discouraged” response to the pardons.