NOTE: This edition of The Washington Informer’s Collins Council Report doesn’t follow the usual format due to what unfolded at the end of the D.C. Council’s March 4 legislative meeting. Read and see.
Throughout much of the D.C. Council’s recent legislative meeting, Karen Hylton sat quietly in council chambers as council members weighed in on a bevy of issues, including the extension of nighttime hours for establishments during special events, the definition of an unlicensed marijuana shop, and the timeline for the automatic sealing of non-convictions.
Shortly after council members adjourned the March 4 meeting, Hylton approached the dais, commanded their attention and questioned, for several minutes, why the council didn’t respond, or try to prevent, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)’s reinstatement of the officers convicted for their role in the death of her son, Karon Hylton-Brown.
“These officers are back on duty, on their job to kill someone else,” Hylton told council members, at one point alluding to D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s Second Chance Clarification Emergency Amendment Act of 2025.
“And you guys are looking at me talking about clemency, talking about expungement. So my thing is now, if you guys are sitting here, what are you guys doing? What do we do? Wait for the next child to die?”
On Monday night, news of Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky’s return to MPD hit social media, with members of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams decrying the move, and advisory neighborhood commissioners living in Hylton-Brown’s stomping grounds of Brightwood Park in Northwest gelling plans together for an upcoming community meeting.
Hylton’s impromptu appearance before the council reportedly followed her attempt to speak with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) at the budget forum she conducted at Rosedale Recreation Center last week.
Last December, Bowser met with then President-elect Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Weeks later, at the start of his second presidency, Trump pardoned Sutton and Zabavsky, both of whom were serving federal sentences for their participation in, and cover up of, the illegal vehicular pursuit that killed Hylton-Brown in the fall of 2020.
In speaking about the pardon, Trump identified Hylton-Brown as an undocumented resident, a designation that Hylton said compel her to question what the Bowser administration has been telling the White House.
“None of you guys, except Ms. [Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis] George knows Karon,” Hylton said on the council floor on March 4, as she emphasized her son’s birth in the United States. “So the information related to him had to come from Mayor Bowser’s administration. If it didn’t come from her administration, then where did it come from? That’s where the accountability comes in, because no one wants to take accountability for it. No one wants to say that ‘I said this and I said that.’”
A Bowser administration spokesperson told The Informer that the mayor and President Trump didn’t discuss any pardons during her meeting last year.
Council Members React to a Mother’s Plea, Call for Action
On Tuesday, Hylton’s engagement with the council lasted nearly 15 minutes, with some council members on the outskirts of the dais slowly leaving the platform, and the council chambers altogether as Hylton poured out her heart.
At one point, D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds, in response to Hylton’s criticism of the council, told her that the council, at this point, could pass a resolution in opposition to Terence and Zabavsky’s reinstatement, though that might prove ineffective.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) later expressed similar thoughts.
“I really don’t know what the council can do with regard to hiring decisions by the Metropolitan Police Department,” said Mendelson, who denied having prior knowledge of Sutton and Zabavsky’s reinstatement. “That doesn’t mean that members won’t think about it and think whether there’s something we can do.”
Hylton-Brown’s death at the age of 20 inspired nights of protests in front of MPD’s Fourth District Headquarters on Georgia Avenue, less than a mile from the Kennedy Street corridor, where Hylton-Brown’s moped crashed into a moving van, and Sutton and Zabavsky, according to prosecutors, actively destroyed evidence of a chase.
Months later, with Lewis George representing Ward 4 on the council, the local legislative body passed legislation reinforcing MPD’s “no chase” policy. Provisions of that law would later be weakened during passage of emergency public safety legislation championed by Bowser and Pinto, chair of the council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety.
On Tuesday afternoon, before the council approved Pinto’s legislation, aimed at clarifying who receives automatic record expungement, Lewis George expressed her thoughts on the timely topic of clemency.
“It deserves noting the harm that [Trump’s executive order] has had to our community. D.C. as a whole, but the Ward 4 community,” Lewis George told her colleagues. “So while we have this moment. While we’re talking about clemency, I don’t want that moment to go by that we don’t address what happened in our own D.C. community.”
MPD declined to comment on personnel matters.
Business During the Council Meeting
During the council’s fifth legislative meeting of the 26th council period, council members passed ceremonial resolutions in recognition of Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels and Charles C. “Sandy” Wilkes, D.C. Policy Center’s founding board chairman. They also conducted first readings on bills designating an alley in Ward 1 as D.C. Legendary Musicians Way and exempting digital-only telehealth platforms, among other entities, from the certificate of need process.
The council also took one step toward further protecting sexual misconduct survivors, approving on the first reading a bill that D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) introduced. That bill, titled Institution of Higher Education Sexual Misconduct Reporting and Resource Accessibility, requires the provision of emergency support for survivors, amnesty for those who report alleged perpetrators, and mandatory sexual misconduct training for students and personnel.
Henderson, chair of the council’s Committee on Health, called the legislation a game changer for college students.
“A lot of students who we talked to didn’t necessarily feel comfortable going to the Title IX coordinator at their university,” she told The Informer. “Talking to the extent of what additional support should we be providing to victims in those circumstances?”
Earlier, Henderson said that during a politically precarious time, her bill provides some level of stability for D.C. college students.
“We felt that because there had been some volatility in terms of the federal government side, that it was important for us to have basically a baseline, if you will,” Henderson explained. “We worked with a consortium of colleges and universities in our area to establish this floor.”
Thank you for reporting on this heartbreaking story, Sam. I think it would be helpful to also note that the DC Police Union explicitly lobbied Trump for the pardons for these officers that ultimately lead to their reinstatement. I wouldn’t be the least but surprised if the Police Union told blatant lies (e.g. immigration status) to gain favor with Trump and get the pardon over the finish line.