Two Washington, D.C., police officers were sentenced last week to multiple years in prison for the role they played in the death of a man who was killed during a police chase.
On Thursday, Sept. 12, US District Judge Paul Friedman sentenced 40-year-old Terence Sutton of the Metropolitan Police Department to five and a half years in prison after being convicted of murdering Karon Hylton- Brown, 20. Friedman also sentenced 56-year-old former MPD lieutenant, Andrew Zabavsky, who was Sutton’s supervisor, to four years for conspiracy after he helped Sutton cover up details of the reckless police pursuit.
The sentencing followed a three-day hearing. According to a spokesperson for the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Friedman allowed Sutton and Zabavsky to stay out of prison until they complete their appeals. Prosecutors recommended 18 years in prison for Sutton and just over 10 for Zabavsky. In a statement from D.C. attorney Matthew Graves, he said the “public safety” promised by law enforcement “requires public trust,” a trust he said the two officers’ crimes have eroded, doing a “disservice to the community” they serve and their fellow officers.
The chase happened at night on Oct. 23, 2020. Sutton spotted Hylton-Brown riding on an electric moped without a helmet on the sidewalk and pursued him in an undercover police vehicle, in which there were three other officers (not including Zabavsky, who drove a marked police car). Hylton-Brown fled and they chased him for about three minutes down 10 city blocks, driving on roads in the wrong direction and running stop signs, while Sutton disabled his lights and sirens just before Hylton-Brown was struck by an oncoming vehicle that did not see him or any sirens for warning.
Sutton was found guilty of second-degree murder in December 2022 after a trial that lasted nine weeks. He and Zabavsky were also both convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy for trying to cover up the incident that resulted in Hylton-Brown’s death.
Hylton-Brown’s death sparked a wave of protests in the nation’s capital, especially concentrated outside a D.C. police station, where hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Oct. 2020. The incident happened about five months after George Floyd died during a police encounter, leading to international protests directed by the Black Lives Matter movement.
