DC police officers sentenced to prison for deadly chase and cover-up

Two police officers were sentenced on Thursday to several years in prison for their roles in a deadly chase of a man on a moped and subsequent cover-up — a case that ignited protests in the nation’s capital.

Metropolitan Police Department officer Terence Sutton, 40, was sentenced to five years and six months behind bars for a murder conviction in the October 2020 death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown. Andrew Zabavsky, a former MPD lieutenant who supervised Sutton, was sentenced to four years of incarceration for conspiring with Sutton to hide the reckless pursuit.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman handed down both prison sentences following a three-day hearing. The judge allowed both officers to remain free pending their appeals, according to a Justice Department spokesperson.

Prosecutors had recommended prison sentences of 18 years and just over 10 years, respectively, for Sutton and Zabavsky.

Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a statement after the verdict that “public safety requires public trust.”

“Crimes like this erode 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 demonstrators 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 charges.

On the night of Oct. 23, 2020, Sutton drove an undercover police car to chase Hylton-Brown, who was riding an electric moped on a sidewalk without a helmet. Three other officers were passengers in Sutton’s car. Zabavsky was riding in a marked police vehicle.

The chase lasted nearly three minutes and spanned 10 city blocks, running through stop signs and going the wrong way up a one-way street. Sutton turned off his vehicle’s emergency lights and sirens and accelerated just before an oncoming car struck Hylton-Brown, tossing his body into the air. He never regained consciousness before he died.

The driver whose car struck Hylton-Brown testified that he would have slowed down or pulled over if he had seen police lights or heard a siren. Prolonging the chase ignored risks to public safety and violated the police department’s training and policy for pursuits, according to prosecutors.

“Hylton-Brown was not a fleeing felon, and trial evidence established the officers had no reason to believe that he was,” prosecutors wrote. “There was also no evidence that he presented any immediate risk of harm to anyone else or that he had a weapon.”

Prosecutors say Sutton and Zabavsky immediately embarked on a cover-up: They waved off an eyewitness to the crash without interviewing that person. They allowed the driver whose car struck Hylton-Brown to leave the scene within 20 minutes. Sutton drove over crash debris instead of preserving evidence. They misled a commanding officer about the severity of the crash. Sutton later drafted a false police report on the incident.

“A police officer covering up the circumstances of an on-duty death he caused is a grave offense and a shocking breach of public trust,” prosecutors wrote.

More than 40 current and former law-enforcement officers submitted letters to the court in support of Sutton, a 13-year department veteran.

“Officer Sutton had no intent to cause harm to Hylton-Brown that evening,” Sutton’s attorneys wrote. “His only motive was to conduct an investigatory stop to make sure that Hylton-Brown was not armed so as to prevent any further violence.”

Zabavsky’s lawyers asked the judge to sentence the 18-year department veteran to probation instead of prison. They said that Sutton, 56, was the first MPD officer to be charged with murder and that the case against Zababasky is “similarly unique.”

“The mere prosecution of this case, combined with the media attention surrounding it, serves as a form of general deterrence for other police officers who may be in a similar situation as Lt. Zabavsky,” defense attorneys wrote.

Amaala Jones Bey, the mother of Hylton-Brown’s daughter, described him as a loving father and supportive boyfriend.

“All of this was cut short because of the reckless police officers who unlawfully chased my lover to his death,” she wrote in a letter to the court.