WASHINGTON, DC- In another case of unwinding a politically-motivated hit job on police officers by the Biden administration, two Metro DC police officers who were sentenced to prison in connection with the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown in October 2020, have returned to the beat.
In January, President Donald Trump issued full and unconditional pardons to then-former DC Metro police officers Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky. Sutton was unbelievably charged with second-degree murder, while both he and Zabavsky were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice after prosecutors alleged a cover-up of the incident.
The DC Metro Police Department has reinstated both officers, according to WUSA-9. The agency refused to comment on the decision. Papers signed last week reinstated Sutton, who had been assigned to the 4th District before his arrest. For the time being, he will not be placed on patrol duties.
Meanwhile, Zabavsky was reinstated last Monday.
In September 2024, Sutton, 40, was sentenced to five years in prison by a jury in connection with the 2020 incident, which occurred in 2022. The incident began when Hylton-Brown engaged police in a low-speed pursuit while driving an electric moped that lasted for three minutes over 10 city blocks. Prosecutors alleged that Sutton chased Hylton-Brown the wrong way on several city streets while operating at twice the legal speed limit. The chase allegedly violated the department’s policy, which prohibited officers from chasing suspects for minor traffic violations.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial that the only reason Sutton chased Hylton-Brown was because he was riding his moped on a sidewalk without a helmet. Both officers disputed that account. The conspiracy charges levied against both officers allege they tried to cover up details of the crash.
As has been seen in several high-profile trials of police over the recent past, prosecutors and the court were alleged to have suppressed exculpatory information offered by the defense to the jury revealing officers had reason to believe Hylton-Brown was a member of the Kennedy Street Crew (KDY) gang linked to violence and drug trafficking in DC. The officer’s defense attorney, J. Michael Hannon, argued that another officer had flagged Hylton-Brown for suspicious behavior earlier that day, and the two officers believed he had returned to Brightwood Park that evening to retaliate after an earlier dispute. During his appeal, Sutton said he’d stopped the suspect because he believed he was armed and a threat to others.
Last June, federal prosecutors indicted 12 members of the KDY gang on a number of charges, including conspiracy to commit drug trafficking and assault with a deadly weapon. During a press release announcing the indictments, the US Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said KDY members were operating open-air drug markets in the Brightwood Park neighborhood.
When President Trump issued the pardons in January, Sutton and Zabavsky’s convictions were under appeal. Last week, a federal judge dismissed the convictions, paving the way for the officers’ reinstatement.
The two officers were caught up in the anti-police sentiment sweeping the country after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, was attributed to “unwarranted” police use of force. It would later be discovered that Floyd, who was obese and had other comorbidities, had lethal levels of fentanyl in his system at the time of his death.
Hylton-Brown likely never stood a chance, since both his parents have criminal records. Hylton Brown’s father was arrested during the Floyd protests outside the 4th District precinct, while his mother, Karen, was charged with assaulting a US Marshal during Sutton and Zabavsky’s trial. She was acquitted of those charges in late 2023.
Law Enforcement Today spoke with Ed Martin, the former acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, now the DOJ’s Pardon Attorney, who told us that he had just been sworn in when President Trump issued the pardons for Sutton and Zabavsky.
Martin said he was at the Oval Office when Trump was about to sign the two pardons.
“I remember, I went to the Oval Office on the day he did the pardon, and before he [Trump] signed it, he looked over at me and he said, ‘There’s a good pardon, right? You know, you agree?’ And I said, Yes, sir.“
Martin said the president was curious about how the officers would react.
And he asked, ‘What do the cops say?’ ‘They said they want it as bad as these two officers,’ Martin told the president, and he’s like, ‘that’s good.’”
Martin told LET that other city officials, whom we won’t name, also supported the decision to pardon the two officers, obviously feeling, like many, that they were caught up in the George Floyd mania. For obvious reasons, primarily political, they could not go on the record with those sentiments. However, the fact that both officers were reinstated only days after their cases were dismissed speaks volumes.
“And he’s like, ‘well, it’s the right thing to do. We’re gonna do it,’ So it was great,” Martin said.
Martin told us he believed the entire DC Metro police officer arrests were “outrageous.”
“That was the thing with the guy on a moped, and he ended up crashing. Yeah, yeah, they chased, and in the stupid rules of MPD. you’re not supposed to chase a bad guy. Well, this was a bad guy. They tried to capture him,” the New Jersey native said.
“He ran [the moped] out on the street and got hit by a vehicle and killed. And they got charged with, I think, attempted murder. And yeah, it was outrageous. It was outrageous. So you know, that was a big deal.”
Slowly but surely, the lawfare that caught up with not only President Trump, but also other conservatives and especially police officers is being unwound.
On behalf of Law Enforcement Today, congratulations to Officer Sutton and Lt. Zabavsky on their well-deserved reinstatements.
