Trump pardons two officers convicted in murder of Black man in Washington
US President Donald Trump has issued a “full and unconditional pardon” to two Washington DC police officers convicted for the murder of a young Black man.
Lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky and Officer Terence Sutton of the Metropolitan Police Department were granted full clemency by Donald Trump, after a chase in 2020 that resulted in the killing of a 20-year-old Black man named Karon Hylton Brown.
“They were arrested, put in jail for five years because they went after an illegal,” Trump said on 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.”
Shortly after issuing clemency to all of the nearly 1600 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the capitol, Trump decided to pardon Sutton and Zabavsky who were sentenced last year to 5 and 4 years in prison, respectively.
The DC Police Union praised Trump’s decision on clemency for the two officers as righting “an incredible wrong.”
According to US reports, the rate of fatal police shootings in the United States varies significantly across ethnic groups.
Between 2015 and December 2024, Black Americans reportedly experienced a rate of 6.2 fatal police shootings per million people annually, compared to 2.4 fatal shootings per million annually for white Americans.
In April 2021, a former Minnesota police officer fatally shot a 20-year-old Black man . The convict was sentenced to only two years in prison.
Another instance pertains to a 49-year-old American officer by the name of Jeremy Cooper, who was found guilty in December 2023, of criminally negligent homicide in connection to the passing of 23-year-old Elijah McClain.
Cooper was handed over 14 months of work release in jail along with four years probation at a court in Colorado and a provision for a work release, according to US media.
The latest pardoning took place after a new era of protests against police brutality emerged following the heinous murder of George Floyd by US police officers in May 2020.
Police brutality in the US, particularly against people of color with minor crimes, has a long history, not just in Louisiana, but the rest of the country as well.
Endemic racism among members of US law enforcement agencies plays a crucial part in the use of excessive force against marginalized people, such as Muslims, Asian Americans, Latinos, and above all African Americans.
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