Karen Hylton doesn’t pretend her son was an angel.
She does believe, though, that he didn’t deserve to die alone on a Washington, D.C., street, bleeding from trauma inflicted after a police chase that investigators said never should have happened.
“You murdered my child, then you lied about it,” she said.
Federal prosecutors agreed with her, and brought two Washington police officers to trial. A jury agreed with her, convicting one officer of murder and both of obstructing justice. A judge agreed with her, sentencing one officer to five years and another to four years in prison.
President Donald Trump did not agree.
He pardoned the two officers before either served a day behind bars. Based on that pardon, one was reinstated and remains a police officer, a move that the Office of the DC Auditor called “dismaying.”
Trump’s pardon of officers Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky, which came two days after the president pardoned Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police, is one of many examples of how Trump has used his clemency power unlike any other president in American history.
Neither man would have qualified for a pardon under Justice Department guidelines, which say pardon recipients should have served most of their sentences and expressed remorse for their crimes. But Trump has ignored the traditional review process, handing out pardons to political supporters, people who have hired lawyers with ties to him and famous defendants who have drawn sympathy from the right people.
In the case of the two police officers, the DC Police Union and some conservative activists disagreed vehemently with the prosecution, calling it an unjustified example of a rush to judgment against police after the turmoil following the killing of George Floyd.
The officers are now suing the DOJ, alleging malicious prosecution.
“This case should not have been charged,” said Kellen Dwyer, a former federal prosecutor who represents the two officers. “It was based on a novel and frankly absurd legal theory.”
On the night of Oct. 23, 2020, Karon Hylton-Brown was riding a minibike in his Washington neighborhood when Sutton approached him in his police vehicle, asking why he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Hylton-Brown fled, and Sutton and Zabovsky chased him in their respective patrol cars, reaching speeds of up to 40 miles per hour through streets and alleys in the neighborhood. At times, the officers activated their emergency lights, but at other times, they turned them off.
Hylton-Brown sped into the oncoming path of a minivan, which struck and killed him.
As federal investigators would later conclude, Sutton didn’t tell the truth about what happened because, prosecutors said, he knew that Hylton-Brown posed no threat to public safety and that the chase violated Washington policy. Sutton did not disclose to superiors that there had been a chase, according to court testimony.
“This was a murder and a cover-up,” said Ahmed Baset, who prosecuted the case and was later fired by Trump’s DOJ.
“This was treated as an ordinary traffic fender bender accident by Sutton and Zabavsky,” he continued.
The officers told the driver of the car that hit Hylton-Brown to leave within 20 minutes, “and so that was a piece of evidence that drove away,” Baset added.
“Witnesses who were trying to provide information about what they saw and heard were told to shoo, and no witness statements were taken,” he said.
Baset said the investigation found that Sutton’s vehicle did not have its lights and sirens on, meaning the minivan driver had no way of knowing there was a police chase happening.
In Washington, he said, “the pursuit policy is, unless it’s a violent crime that just occurred and the individual is creating a threat for the public and the society, you can’t go after that individual, and if there are alternatives to getting that person, officers need to pursue those alternatives.”
Baset said that the officers knew where Hylton-Brown lived and that one of the other officers who was sitting in the patrol car during the pursuit “told Mr. Sutton, ‘Hey, look, we should probably terminate this and get a warrant,’ which is something that was ignored.”
The officers had no legal basis to stop Hylton-Brown that night, so he had a right to drive away, Baset said, and they had no good reason to pursue him.
The officers and their lawyers, however, see the case far differently. Dwyer noted that Hylton-Brown had a long arrest record and was holding more than $3,000 in cash on him when he died.
Dwyer said the officers were trying to stop Hylton-Brown because they feared he was involved in a gang dispute — evidence the judge did not allow the jury to hear in the trial.
“The idea that Officer Sutton doesn’t even get to make a defense that he was acting as a police officer is outrageous,” he said.
Against the recommendations of the police department’s own disciplinary review, which recommended that both officers be fired, then-Washington police Chief Pamela A. Smith said she also found the prosecution problematic, and she reinstated both officers after Trump pardoned them. Sutton served a 25-day suspension and is back on the force, while Zabavsky was allowed to retire with his pension after paying a $2,500 fine.
Washington’s audit of the case concluded last summer that the discipline was “grossly inadequate,” extremely lenient” and “undermined the accountability and transparency that are so important for any major city police department in maintaining trust with the community.” The audit made a number of recommendations it noted would improve policing and the relationship with the community.
But for Karen Hylton, what she sees as a betrayal of her community — and of her family — is not soon forgiven.
“If someone killed your child, would you want them to babysit your next child, or any child?” she asked.
“I lived my life here from eight years old. I lived my life here. and everything that I want, I worked, I lived for was taken from me. I can’t see my child, I go home empty,” she said.
Nora McKee contributed to this reporting.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
