The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced on Wednesday a “full and unconditional” pardon for two Washington police officers who had been convicted of the death of African-American Karon Hylton-Brown, 20, a case that sparked mass protests after the murder of George Floyd.
The two officers affected by this measure are Andrew Zabavsky and Terence Sutton, who in October 2020 saw Hylton-Brown driving without a helmet and chased him at high speed until he was finally hit by an uninvolved vehicle and died.
While Hylton-Brown lay in the street, the officers covered up the events, turning off the cameras they wore on their uniforms, tampered with evidence at the scene of the incident and misled their superiors about what had happened.
Sutton was found guilty of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice and sentenced to 66 months in prison. Zabavsky was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice and faced 48 months in prison.
The Washington Police Union had requested a White House pardon for the officers, who are free on bail pending the appeal of their case. Their legal teams had also asked for a presidential pardon, according to the American television network CNN.
Trump had referred to these pardons recently, since this week, when he was asked if his decision to pardon the attackers on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, sent the message that it was okay to attack the police.
“Quite the opposite. In fact, I’m going to allow two officers… (who) were arrested, jailed (…) because they were chasing an illegal, and I guess something went wrong and they were arrested. A dangerous criminal, by the way. I’m a bigger friend of the police than anyone who’s ever been in this office,” he said.
