Missouri Gov. commutes sentence of ex-Chiefs assistant Britt Reid after DWI severely injured young girl
The incident in 2021 left a 5-year-old girl in a coma with a traumatic brain injury
Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons commuted the sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid on Friday afternoon, according to the Kansas City Star.
Reid, who is the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of driving while intoxicated in 2022. He was sentenced to three years in prison in November 2022. While Reid is being released from prison, he will be under house arrest until Oct. 31, 2025 and will have “strict conditions of probation.”
“Mr. Reid has completed his alcohol abuse treatment program and has served more prison time than most individuals convicted of similar offenses,” his commutation letter read, in part.
Prosecutors said that Reid was driving more than 80 miles per hour on Feb. 4, 2021 when he collided with two vehicles on the side of an exit ramp along an interstate near the Chiefs’ practice facility. Reid had a serum blood alcohol content of 0.113 about two hours after the crash, well above the Missouri legal limit.
The crash left six people, including two children, injured. One of the children, 5-year-old Ariel Young, was in a coma for 11 days and sustained a traumatic brain injury. Young’s mother said at the sentencing hearing that she is still dealing with issues from the crash, including balance trouble, dragging her right foot when she walks and needing thick glasses, among other things.
“He had every opportunity in life,” Young’s mother, Felicia Miller, said in 2022. “Instead of doing something with the opportunities that have been handed to him, Britt Reid hurt us. Ariel’s life is forever changed because of Britt Reid. Her life will be dealing with the damage that Britt Reid did.
“She will never play sports,” Miller added. “Sports, [which] his family has made a living off of. She’ll never do that. He took that from her. She will deal with the effects of his actions every day for the rest of her life.”
An attorney for Young’s family said Friday that he was in disbelief after the commutation news.
The crash took place just days before the Chiefs fell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. Reid was suspended, and then his contract was not renewed that offseason. The Chiefs reached a deal with Young’s family to cover her medical care and provide “long-term financial stability.”
Reid first joined the Chiefs as an assistant in 2013, where he started as a quality control coach before working his way up to linebackers coach. Andy Reid, fresh off of the Chiefs' win in the Super Bowl earlier this year, will enter his 26th season as a head coach in the NFL this fall.
