The mother of a D.C. man who died in a police pursuit lashed out Monday at Mayor Muriel Bowser, accusing her of failing to confront President Trump over his pardons of the two officers convicted in her son’s death.
Karen Hylton interrupted Ms. Bowser’s afternoon press briefing on the D.C. budget shortly after it began, demanding to know why Mr. Trump described her son Karon Hylton-Brown as an illegal.
Ms. Hylton also disputed the president’s power to pardon Metropolitan Police Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky.
Both men had been sentenced in the October 2020 pursuit that ended when Hylton-Brown rode his motorbike out of an alley and was fatally struck by another driver.
“Did you tell President Trump that Karon is ‘illegal?’” Ms. Hylton said. “Do you know the pardons of these officers is very much unconstitutional?”
Ms. Hylton grew more agitated as police officers crowded around her to escort her away.
She repeatedly told the officers “Don’t touch me” while she kept asking Ms. Bowser for an answer. The mayor said she never talked about Hylton-Brown with the president as Ms. Hylton was led out.
Ms. Hylton has been prone to public outbursts related to her son’s death.
During the officers’ 2022 trial, Ms. Hylton was arrested for yelling and physically struggling with U.S. Marshals after the jury announced its verdict.
Ms. Hylton was tried in 2023 on assault charges over that altercation but was acquitted.
On Monday, Ms. Hylton seemed angry at Mr. Trump’s comment in January about trying to pardon two D.C. police officers “that went after an illegal.”
It’s unclear what exactly Mr. Trump meant by referring to Hylton-Brown as an “illegal,” but the 20-year-old was an American citizen.
The president also has the authority to pardon people convicted in federal cases across the nation and in local D.C. Superior Court.
Officer Sutton was sentenced to more than five years in prison last fall after being found guilty of second-degree murder in 2022. The same jury found Lt. Zabavsky guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges, and he was given a four-year-sentence for the crimes.
Both were out of jail while awaiting appeal until Mr. Trump granted them clemency. Officer Sutton and Lt. Zabavsky were reinstated back into the department earlier this month.
Their convictions came from a police pursuit that began when the two officers tried to pull over Hylton-Brown, who was driving a motorbike on a sidewalk in Northwest.
Hylton-Brown sped off, beginning a multiblock pursuit. Prosecutors said the two officers raced after the driver and even went in the opposite direction on a one-way street.
Police followed Hylton-Brown into an alley before the 20-year-old driver zoomed out of the narrow passage and was hit by a passing motorist, according to court documents. Hylton-Brown died in a hospital days later.
Prosecutors said the two officers covered up the crash by turning off their body cameras to discuss the incident privately and then lying to their superiors about how the pursuit unfolded and the severity of Hylton-Brown’s injuries.
D.C. police officers are not allowed to pursue suspects over traffic violations alone.
Hylton-Brown’s death ignited protests in the District, which followed a summer full of anti-police brutality demonstrations inspired by George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis earlier that year.
Following Mr. Trump’s pardons, issued on just his second full day in office, Metropolitan Police leadership skewered the legal process that saw the two officers convicted.
“Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,” the statement read. “These members could never have imagined that engaging in a core function of their job would be prosecuted as a crime.”
