DC police officers sentenced to prison for deadly chase and cover-up
Two police officers were sentenced to several years in prison on Thursday for their roles in a deadly chase of a man on a moped and the subsequent cover-up that sparked protests in the country’s capital.
Metropolitan Police Department Officer Terence Sutton, 40, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison for murder in the October 2020 shooting death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown. Andrew Zabavsky, a former MPD lieutenant who supervised Sutton, was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring with Sutton to cover up the reckless pursuit.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman imposed prison sentences on both officers after a three-day hearing. The judge allowed both officers to remain free pending their appeals, a Justice Department spokesman said.
Prosecutors had recommended prison sentences of between $100 and $1,500. 18 years and just a little bit more than 10 yearsfor Sutton and Zabavsky respectively.
Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement after the verdict that “public safety requires the public’s trust.”
“Crimes like this undermine that trust and are a disservice to the community and the thousands of officers who work incredibly hard, within the bounds of the Constitution, to keep us safe,” Graves said.
Hundreds of protesters protested outside a police station in Washington after Hylton-Brown’s death.
In December 2022, after a nine-week trial, a jury found Sutton guilty of second-degree murder and convicted both officers of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
On the night of October 23, 2020, Sutton drove an undercover police car in pursuit of Hylton-Brown, who was riding an electric moped down a sidewalk without a helmet. Three other officers were passengers in Sutton’s car. Zabavsky was driving a marked police vehicle.
The chase lasted nearly three minutes and covered 10 city blocks, during which he ran stop signs and drove the wrong way on a one-way street. Sutton turned off his vehicle’s lights and sirens and accelerated just before an oncoming car struck Hylton-Brown, throwing his body into the air. He never regained consciousness before dying.
The driver whose car hit Hylton-Brown testified that he would have slowed down or stopped if he had seen police lights or heard a siren. By extending the chase, he disregarded risks to public safety and violated police training and policy for pursuits, prosecutors said.
“Hylton-Brown was not a fleeing felon, and the evidence at trial showed that the officers had no reason to believe he was,” prosecutors wrote. “There was also no evidence that he posed an imminent danger to anyone else or that he had a weapon.”
Prosecutors say Sutton and Zabavsky immediately began a cover-up: They waved away an eyewitness to the crash without questioning him. They let the driver whose car Hylton-Brown hit leave within 20 minutes. Sutton drove over debris from the crash instead of preserving evidence. They misled a commanding officer about the severity of the crash. Sutton later filed a false police report about the incident.
“For a police officer to cover up the circumstances of a death he caused in the line of duty is a serious offense and a shocking violation of the public trust,” prosecutors wrote.
More than 40 current and former police officers filed letters with the court in support of Sutton, a 13-year veteran of the department.
“Officer Sutton had no intention of harming Hylton-Brown that evening,” Sutton’s attorneys wrote“His sole motive was to launch an investigation to ensure Hylton-Brown was not armed, thereby preventing further violence.”
Zabavsky’s attorneys asked the judge to sentence the 18-year veteran of the department to probation instead of prison time. They said Sutton, 56, was the first MPD officer to accused of murder and that the case against Zababasky is “also unique.”
“The simple prosecution of this case, combined with the media attention surrounding it, serves as a form of general deterrence to other police officers who may find themselves in a similar situation to Lt. Zabavsky,” defense attorneys wrote.
Amaala Jones Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s daughter, described him as a loving father and a supportive friend.
“All of this was abruptly cut short by the reckless police officers who unlawfully pursued my loved one to his death,” she wrote in a letter to the court.