Former DC Police officer sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for police chase that killed Karon Hylton-Brown

WASHINGTON — A federal judge sentenced a former police officer to more than five years in prison Thursday for a reckless police chase that ended in the death of Karon Hylton-Brown in 2020.

DC Police Officer Terence Sutton, 40, was convicted by a jury in 2022 of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice. His commanding officer, DC Police Lt. Andrew Zabavsky, 56, was convicted at the same trial of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice for their alleged efforts to cover up the details of the chase and crash.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman sentenced Sutton to 66 months, or 5.5 years, in prison, and Zabavsky to four years. Both men were granted bond pending appeal.

The sentences are far less than the 18 and 10 years, respectively, federal prosecutors had sought for Sutton and Zabavsky. Sutton's attorneys had argued the first-of-its-kind case warranted an extraordinary downward variance to a sentence of only probation.

Sutton, a 13-year veteran of DC Police, was a member of the 4th District Crime Suppression Team assigned to patrol the Brightwood Park neighborhood in October 2020 when he and Zabavsky attempted a traffic stop on Hylton-Brown. The 20-year-old, who was riding a moped on a sidewalk without wearing a helmet, fled the officers, who pursued for three minutes across 10 city blocks – at times going the wrong way on city streets and accelerating to twice the residential speed limit. The chase ended catastrophically on Kennedy Street when Hylton-Brown pulled out of an alley and was struck by an oncoming vehicle. He died two days later of injuries sustained in the crash.

Prosecutors argued during a nearly two-month trial that the officers had not only violated DC Police policies on chases – which prohibit the pursuit of suspects for minor traffic offenses – but had attempted to cover up details about the chase and crash afterward. Although Sutton’s police cruiser never made contact with Hylton-Brown or his moped at any point during the chase, prosecutors told jurors he had nevertheless committed murder because of his “conscious disregard of the extreme danger of death or seriously bodily injury.”

Sutton’s conviction marked the first time in DC Police history an officer was found to have committed murder in the line of duty.

The jury's guilty verdict visibly shocked Sutton and prompted an outburst from Hylton-Brown's mother, Karen Hylton, who was removed from the courtroom. She was later charged with assaulting a U.S. Marshal during the incident, but was acquitted by a jury last year. In late 2021, Hylton filed a wrongful death suit against both officers, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower and DC Police seeking more than $31 billion in damages. That lawsuit remains pending.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth Aloi and Risa Berkower sought 18 years in prison, writing in a sentencing memo that Sutton's decision to chase Hylton-Brown on nothing more than a “hunch” and a minor traffic infraction “flew in the face of the badge the defendant wore.”

Sutton’s attorneys argued throughout the case that both prosecutors and the court had suppressed information from the public and jury about Hylton-Brown’s alleged membership in the Kennedy Street Crew (KDY) gang linked to numerous incidents of violence and drug trafficking in the area where the chase occurred. On the day of his death, Hylton-Brown was identified in a “beat book” prepared by DC Police’s Intelligence Unit as a verified member of KDY. Defense attorney J. Michael Hannon argued at trial that another officer had flagged suspicious behavior by Hylton-Brown earlier in the day and said Sutton and Zabavsky believed he had returned to Brightwood Park that evening to retaliate after a dispute.

Last June – roughly six months after Sutton and Zabavsky were convicted at trial – federal prosecutors indicted 12 alleged KDY members on a slew of charges ranging from conspiracy to commit drug trafficking to assault with a deadly weapon. In a press release issued alongside the arrests, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said the KDY members were operating open-air drug markets in the Brightwood Park neighborhood.

In a motion to compel additional discovery in July, Hannon argued prosecutors had failed to provide potentially exculpatory information about the then-ongoing investigation into KDY and Hylton-Brown’s alleged membership in the gang. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman denied that motion last week, ruling that Hylton-Brown’s alleged involvement in KDY had “no bearing on the central issue of [Sutton’s] guilt in this case.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.