The comments marked an about-face in the police department’s tone on the prosecution of two officers, and caught some senior police officials and mayoral aides off guard.

By Peter Hermann and Ellie Silverman, WAPO, March 2, 2025

After a jury in 2022 convicted two D.C. police officers for their roles in a pursuit that killed a young Black man, the police chief at the time said the department “supported the independent and thorough review” by federal prosecutors and had “confidence in our judicial system.”

But hours after President Donald Trump pardoned Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky in January, a new police chief, Pamela A. Smith, took a different tone. Her statement personallythanked Trump and his newly chosen interim U.S. attorney for D.C. and asserted that any wrongdoing should be addressed through discipline and training, “not through criminal prosecution.”

This about-face in department thinking, largely backed by the mayor, took some senior police officials and mayoral aides by surprise, according to several people in the Bowser administration who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. They worried the statement could be a harbinger of a new era — a signal of appeasement to the Trump administration and less scrutiny of police conduct as the District awaits an executive order with an anticipated focus on criminal justice.

In an interview Friday, Smith said her statement about the pardons came from her core beliefs and was not intended to be taken in a political context. She was not with the department when Karon Hylton-Brown was killed or when the officers were charged. She joined the force as the agency’s chief equity officer seven months before the officers were convicted.

Smith declined to comment on the city’s relationship with the Trump administration. She denied that supporting the pardons might cost her public support or represents a change in her commitment to accountability. “That is not how I would characterize it,” the chief said. “I think I have a strong relationship with the community.”

But the reversal of what was then a rare criminal prosecution of police coupled with the strong support from Smith, left some city officials and activists wondering where civil rights enforcement is headed in the District in the Trump era, amid a broader hardening of the city’s posture on criminal justice issues.

D.C. Council President Phil Mendelson (D) in an interview called Trump’s pardons “a step back in time to when society treated police officers as never doing anything wrong” and said he disagreed with Smith’s conclusions that criminal charges against the officers were unwarranted.

Sutton and Zabavsky were convicted of conspiracy and obstructing justice, and Sutton also was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Hylton-Brown, 20. The fatal pursuit heightened racial tensions in the Brightwood Park neighborhood, prompted days of destructive protests and clashes with police, and came to symbolize the aggressive style of policing that activists were trying to curb.

Mendelson said he is particularly upset about the pardons of obstruction-of-justice convictions that found the officers tried to cover up the improper pursuit by sending away a key witness and lying to their supervisor about the severity of Hylton-Brown’s injuries.

Patrice Sulton, a criminal justice reform advocate and executive director of the DC Justice Lab, called Smith’s support of Trump’s pardons disappointing and out of step with popular opinion.

“I don’t know how many D.C. residents are on their side,” she said. “I think D.C. residents oppose police violence. I don’t think they know much about the facts of the case, but they know that Karon’s death was very much a clarion call at the time.”

Hylton-Brown’s death in the fall of 2020 came months after a summer of nationwide protests and civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and amid a debate over police reform in the District that led to new laws curbing policing practices and funding. It also came as an independent Police Reform Commission established by the D.C. Council debated and later recommended sweeping changes to policing in the District. The police chief at the time, Peter Newsham, pushed back against the D.C. Council and many of commission’s recommendations, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) urged lawmakers to slow down, arguing that the District was ahead of other cities in curbing abusive police practices.

The D.C. police union, which vehemently opposed the earlier reform efforts and blamed changes for a 2023 crime spike, publicly and privately lobbied the White House for the pardons, saying one of the officers had been “wrongly convicted of murder” and both had been targeted for political reasons amid the progressive moment.

After the pardons, Bowser gave Smith her full support, asserting in a public statement that police “had long believed” the criminal prosecutions were unwarranted and that any wrongdoing “was best addressed in MPD’s administrative processes.”

Speaking later to reporters, Bowser said the pursuit of Hylton-Brown violated policy, but she also thought the murder charge was “out of kilter with what happened.” She said city leaders accepted the jury verdict, just as they now accept the pardons. Neither Bowser nor Smith addressed allegations that the officers tried to cover up their actions that night.

The mayor has sought to find common ground with the Trump administration, shedding a more confrontational style taken during his first term. Because the District is not a state, the federal government has outsize influence on its functions. Trump last month remarked to reporters that the federal government “should take over” management of the city because he thinks its leaders are not reducing crime, cleaning up graffiti or dismantling homeless encampments.

For two days, Bowser remained quiet after he pardoned the Capitol rioters who assaulted D.C. officers, and when she did comment publicly, she issued a single statement addressing both the insurrection and Hylton-Brown’s case. She wrote two sentences on the riot, saying of one of the largest and most brutal attacks on D.C. police in history: “The events of January 6 cannot be forgiven or erased. Our officers, city and democracy were assaulted on that day.”

Trump’s interim U.S. attorney, Ed Martin, posted on X shortly before the pardons that he had spoken with Smith about “protecting the Blue,” adding, “Under Biden, they chose politics over police. I choose police.”

Martin, who has been publicly critical of police accountability measures, did not address the pardons in response to questions but issued a statement saying Smith has engaged his office from the start, maintaining a “relationship necessary to fight crime in the District and keep our residents safe.” He said that Smith has introduced him to officials and others “throughout the city” and that “with her leadership at MPD, we can make and keep D.C. safe for everyone.”

Matthew M. Graves, the former U.S. attorney for D.C. whose office brought the criminal charges against officers, declined to comment.

Sutton was sentenced to five years in prison, and Zabavsky to 4½ years. They had been free pending appeals, which are moot. Each remains suspended as police undertake an administrative review of their actions.

In a statement, Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon, called the prosecution of his client a “foul blow” and said, “I can think of no reason Mr. Martin’s action should not be praised as an act of justice.” Zabavsky’s attorney declined to comment for this article.

David L. Shurtz, who represents the mother of Hylton-Brown’s daughter in a civil lawsuit against D.C. police, said he thinks Trump pardoned the officers “as a lever to say he supports the cops,” and as “a pretext to take the heat off” for pardoning rioters who assaulted police at the Capitol.

Smith’s statement praising Trump was issued under the department’s name, not hers, in an apparent attempt to distance her from language some city officials felt was over the top. Smith, in an interview, said she wrote the statement. In it, she noted the dangerous work by police that “requires professional judgment and split-second decision-making.” She called the prosecutions of Sutton and Zabavsky “literally unprecedented,” adding that “never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect. These members could never have imagined that engaging in a core function of their job would be prosecuted as a crime.”

Three city officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said many on the police force believed the pardons gave a welcome voice to those on the force who disapproved of the criminal charges and the department’s initial response, which they believed was designed to avoid offending the top prosecutor at the time.

Past statements from police and Bowser varied in tone. When charges were filed in 2021, Smith’s predecessor, Robert J. Contee III, emailed officers that “there are many in the community who recognize the hard work that you do, who support the work that you do.” Contee added that “unfortunately, we are dealing with the decision we are dealing with today, but I assure you we will get through this together.”

A year later, when the officers were convicted, Contee issued a public statement saying that “since the beginning of this process, MPD has supported the independent and thorough review process conducted by the United States Attorney’s Office. We have confidence in our judicial system, and we trust that the jury examined all the facts, deliberated carefully, and arrived at their decision fairly.”

Contee did not respond to a request for comment.

Ron Moten, a longtime anti-violence activist in the District, said he gives Smith the benefit of the doubt on her stance, given what he called her “entrenchment in the community.”

“From my experience and what’s in her heart,” Moten said, “I know she is really about the people.” Of Bowser, he said in dealing with Trump, “she’s got to be smart and try to find common ground where she can. … If not, we’re going to be in a situation that could be brutal for our city.”