A D.C. police officer was indicted Friday on murder and obstruction charges stemming from the death of Karon Hylton, a moped driver who collided with a vehicle while trying to elude police in an incident that roiled his neighborhood in Northwest Washington and put law enforcement tactics under renewed scrutiny.
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Terence Sutton, 37, a 12-year veteran of the police force, was indicted on one count of second-degree murder, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
A police supervisor, Lt. Andrew Zabavsky, 53, was also charged, with obstruction of justice and conspiracy. The indictment alleges the two officers conspired to cover up an unauthorized pursuit and delayed in reporting the seriousness of Hylton’s injuries to supervisors.
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Criminal charges have rarely been filed against on-duty police officers involved in deaths in the District. The case came after some residents and members of the D.C. Council complained the investigation had lingered too long without resolution.
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The charges come 11 months after the crash that killed 20-year-old Hylton. Police at the time said Sutton and other officers pursued Hylton the night of Oct. 23, 2020, after they spotted him riding a moped on the sidewalk and without a helmet.
In the days following the young man’s death, police and demonstrators clashed outside the 4th District police station on Georgia Avenue.
Sutton, who worked in a specialized crime suppression unit, has been on suspended duty since the fatal crash in the 700 block of Kennedy Street in Brightwood Park.
After a Black man’s death, a D.C. street agonizes over the future of policing
At Sutton’s initial appearance in federal court, his attorney J. Michael Hannon defended the officer’s actions as an attempt to make a legal stop of an individual he suspected of committing a crime. Hannon asserted that Hylton was a member of a drug gang and involved in an altercation earlier in the evening — and that police were concerned he was armed and wanted revenge.
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Hannon said Sutton believed he was the victim of a “tragic double-cross of his commitment to law enforcement.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ahmed Baset blasted the defense claims.
“The double-cross is the abuse of his badge and carrying out the conduct that he did,” Baset said. The prosecutor pushed back at Hannon for “besmirching Mr. Hylton’s character” and said there was “absolutely no evidence that Mr. Hylton possessed a gun, let alone any weapon that night.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui ordered Sutton to remain under home detention with electronic monitoring at his or his mother’s home in Delaware pending trial, with exceptions for work, medical or religious reasons or to meet with his attorneys.
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Zagavksy accepted release under high-intensity supervision.
On the night of the Friday crash, Sutton, with three other officers in his cruiser, tried to stop Hylton, who was on a Revel Electric moped.
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Videos from two D.C. police body-worn cameras show a police cruiser closely following the moped moments before Hylton left an alley and collided with a van. After the crash, Sutton left the cruiser and yelled “Karon,” indicating he had prior interactions with Hylton.
Then-D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said investigators were trying to determine whether the officers in the vehicle were chasing the moped, which could go against rules prohibiting pursuits for traffic violations. At a community meeting shortly after the incident, Newsham said, “Images we see out there suggest there was a police pursuit.”
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The indictment provides new details about the pursuit and for the first time contends that Zabavsky joined Sutton in trying to stop Hylton’s moped, at one point briefly taking over as the lead chase vehicle.
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Prosecutors said in the indictment that the pursuit went 10 blocks. They alleged that Sutton was at times traveling more than double the residential speed limit, went the wrong way on one-way streets and went through several stop signs. The indictment says Sutton and Zabavsky kept each other apprised of their locations on a closed police radio channel that was not accessible to a dispatcher responsible for coordinating authorized pursuits.
After the crash, the indictment says, neither officer immediately notified the department’s major-crash unit, which is responsible for investigating serious traffic collisions, or immediately notified superiors about Hylton’s medical condition.
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Prosecutors said that 20 minutes after the crash, and while still at the scene, Sutton and Zabavsky turned off their body-worn cameras “and conferred privately.” Later at the station, the indictment says, “they provided a misleading account of the incident.” It says Sutton denied pursuing Hylton and that Zabavsky “withheld all information about his involvement in the incident.” Prosecutors said that delayed a proper investigation.
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Patrice Sulton, executive director of D.C. Justice Lab and a member of the D.C. Police Reform Commission, which has recommended sweeping changes in policing in the District, said she thinks improper police pursuits are a problem in the city and that more needs to be done to ensure officers are following the rules.
“I don’t think this will fix the problem,” she said.
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The crash followed months of demonstrations across the country over social justice and policing after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. It sparked a fierce debate in Brightwood Park and across the District about tactics some viewed as overly aggressive against Black residents, while others demanded police step up enforcement in a neighborhood suffering from open-air drug-dealing, deadly gunfire and criminal street crews.
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In April, the D.C. Council-appointed Police Reform Commission recommended sweeping changes in how police operate, including suspending specialized units such as the Gun Recovery Unit and crime suppression teams whose members are freed from answering 911 calls to focus on areas where violence is most acute.
The commission said officers in such units often use “aggressive stop, pursuit, and search tactics that bump up against — and sometimes cross — constitutional boundaries.” The report singled out the Hylton case, saying that “even when lawful, these tactics can “rapidly escalate and lead to police violence,” unfairly target Black neighborhoods and embody the “warrior” model of policing.
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Friends of Hylton said young men who hang out in the community knew Sutton, who they said was among the most visible of officers in Brightwood Park, and have contended officers looked for minor offenses as excuses to stop and search people.
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Hylton’s family and friends and others questioned whether police should have followed Hylton for such minor offenses.
“As our community grieves and demands answers, we must ask: What was going to be accomplished by the chase and traffic stop for not wearing a helmet?” D.C. Council Member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) and chair of the public safety committee said after the incident.
“Incidents like this show us the limits of policing and the ubiquity of Black residents’ interactions with law enforcement,” Allen said then. “When residents call for the reinvestment away from policing into social supports and limiting Black residents’ contacts with law enforcement officers and the criminal justice system, this is why.”
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