XPost: alt.law-enforcement, alt.politics.conservative, alt.politics.trump   
   XPost: sac.politics, talk.politics.guns   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   President Donald Trump issued full and unconditional pardons Wednesday to   
   two Washington, D.C., police officers who were convicted for their roles   
   in a deadly chase of a young man on a moped in 2020 and subsequent cover-   
   up, a case that led to protests in the nation’s capital.   
      
   Trump granted clemency to Metropolitan Police Department Officer Terence   
   Sutton, who was sentenced in September to more than five years in prison.   
   He faced a District of Columbia charge of second-degree murder, and   
   federal charges of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice in   
   the October 2020 unauthorized pursuit that killed Karon Hylton-Brown, 20.   
   Sutton was the first D.C. police officer to be convicted of murder for   
   conduct while on duty.   
      
   The same jury that found Sutton guilty also convicted Andrew Zabavsky, a   
   lieutenant who supervised Sutton, of conspiracy to obstruct and   
   obstruction of justice. Zabavsky was sentenced to four years in prison. He   
   was not accused of the more serious charge of second-degree murder. Trump   
   granted Zabavsky clemency.   
      
   Both men had been free pending the outcome of their appeals.   
      
   Trump had hinted of his plans to pardon them after his inauguration.   
      
   “They were arrested, put in jail for five years because they went after an   
   illegal,” Trump said Tuesday. “And I guess something happened where   
   something went wrong, and they arrested the two officers and put them in   
   jail for going after a criminal.”   
      
   Hylton-Brown was an American citizen, his mother, Karen Hylton, said in an   
   interview Thursday night. She said he was born Feb. 29, 2000, in   
   Washington, D.C.   
      
   Hylton said she sent a letter to the White House addressed to Trump on   
   Tuesday asking him not to pardon Sutton and Zabavsky. She also wrote in   
   the letter, a copy of which she shared with NBC News, that she believed   
   racism had caused her son’s death, and she asked Trump to review the case   
   before making a judgment. A White House spokesperson did not immediately   
   respond to a request for comment Thursday night.   
      
   The D.C. Police Union praised Trump’s decision, saying in a statement that   
   Sutton had been “wrongly charged by corrupt prosecutors for doing his   
   job.”   
      
   “This action rights an incredible wrong that not only harmed Officer   
   Sutton, but also crippled the ability for the department to function,” the   
   union said.   
      
   The union expressed “dismay” a day earlier after Trump pardoned more than   
   1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the   
   U.S. Capitol, including those who assaulted law enforcement officers.   
      
   The Metropolitan Police Department thanked Trump "for supporting its   
   officers” after the Sutton-Zabavsky pardons, adding in a statement that   
   the prosecutions “were literally unprecedented.”   
      
   “Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police   
   officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,”   
   the department said.   
      
   On the night of Oct. 23, 2020, months after the police killing of George   
   Floyd in Minneapolis had ignited widespread protests against police   
   brutality and racial injustice, Sutton used a police car to chase Hylton-   
   Brown, who was driving a moped without a helmet on a sidewalk in northwest   
   Washington, prosecutors said.   
      
   Hylton-Brown ignored Sutton’s attempt to stop him and drove off. Sutton   
   chased Hylton-Brown for more than 10 blocks “at unreasonable speeds,”   
   prosecutors said, and, at one point, drove the wrong way on a one-way   
   street. Sutton followed Hylton-Brown into a narrow alley, turned off his   
   car’s emergency lights and siren and accelerated. When Hylton-Brown exited   
   the alley, he was struck by another vehicle, according to prosecutors.   
      
   “As Mr. Hylton-Brown lay unconscious in the street in a pool of his own   
   blood, Sutton and Zabavsky, agreed to cover up what Sutton had done to   
   prevent any further investigation of the incident,” prosecutors said in a   
   statement in September.   
      
   The officers allowed the driver whose car struck Hylton-Brown to leave the   
   scene within 20 minutes of the crash, then turned off their body-worn   
   cameras, conferred privately and left, prosecutors said.   
      
   Sutton drove his police car directly over the crash site, audibly crushing   
   pieces of debris from the collision as he left, prosecutors said, and   
   neither officer contacted the department’s Major Crash Unit or its   
   Internal Affairs Division to each initiate investigations.   
      
   They also misled their commanding officer about the severity of the crash,   
   denying that a police chase had even occurred and omitting any mention of   
   Hylton-Brown’s critical injuries, prosecutors said. According to   
   prosecutors, Zabavsky also falsely implied that Hylton-Brown had been   
   drunk and Sutton drafted a false police report.   
      
   Hylton-Brown suffered severe head trauma and died two days later.   
      
   “The jury in this case found the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable   
   doubt for their roles in the murder of Karon Hylton Brown and a related   
   cover up, affirming that what happened here was a serious crime,” then-   
   U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in September after the officers were   
   sentenced. “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.”   
      
   The case spurred days of protests outside a police station in Washington.   
      
   David Shurtz, an attorney representing Hylton-Brown’s estate, said Trump’s   
   decision was “outrageous” and “misguided.”   
      
   “I think it’s one of the worst decisions Trump has ever made,” he said.   
   “And I believe he is being ill-advised.”   
      
   Shurtz believes police unions influenced the decision for the officers to   
   receive pardons.   
      
   Zabavsky’s attorney, Christopher Zampogna, said in a statement that his   
   client “thanks President Trump for issuing his pardon unconditionally.” J.   
   Michael Hannon, Sutton’s attorney, did not immediately return a request   
   for comment.   
      
   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-pardons-two-dc-officers-   
   convicted-fatal-chase-20-year-old-man-co-rcna188920   
      
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