Mother Furious After Governor Commutes Sentence for Ex-Chiefs Coach Who Critically Injured Young Girl in Drunk Driving Incident
The mother of a young girl who was critically injured three years ago by the drunken son of Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is furious after Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson commuted his prison sentence.
Britt Reid, former Chiefs assistant coach, was under the influence of alcohol on Feb. 4, 2021, when he crashed into cars that were stopped on an entrance ramp to Interstate 435 near Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium.
He was later sentenced to serve three years in prison.
According to The Associated Press, Reid was driving 84 mph in a 65 mph zone when the 9 p.m. collision occurred.
Six people in total were injured, including Reid, who had previously been arrested for driving under the influence and also for flashing a firearm at another driver in 2007. In the 2021 incident, he pleaded guilty to felony driving while intoxicated resulting in serious physical injury.
Ariel Young, who was 5 years old when the crash occurred, suffered a traumatic brain injury and has not recovered, her mother, Felicia Miller, told ESPN on Monday. She said her daughter is struggling with the reality she is no longer like other children her age.
She also spent 11 days in a coma immediately after the crash.
Miller said she had hoped some justice would be served when the Chiefs assistant coach was sentenced to three years in prison.
She did not learn Parson — a longtime Chiefs season ticket holder, according to ABC News — had commuted the sentence on March 1 until after Reid had been released.
Reid will serve the remainder of a three-year sentence under house arrest – a sentence that will end on Oct. 31, 2025.
He also must get a job, see an alcohol abuse counselor, meet with a parole officer regularly and serve 10 hours per month of community service.
Miller said the punishment for altering her child’s life is “not enough.”
“We went to court, we [were] told, you’re going to get justice,” Miller told ESPN. “He’s put away for a year and about three months. So we didn’t get [any] justice. It’s not enough.”
Miller also said she lives with a daily reminder of how harmful Reid’s actions were.
”I know they say sometimes you have to forgive and forget to move on,” she told ESPN. “But looking at my baby every day and seeing my daughter, how she has to live, and then seeing how he could be back at home, comfortable.”
The angry mother also commented on Reid’s prior convictions and implied he had received special treatment.
”He keeps just getting a little slap on a wrist when you keep just letting somebody get away, get away, get away. They’re going to continue to do it,” she said.
Miller added, “If I was drunk and slammed into [Reid’s] car. He had his child in the car and his child was injured, it would have been over for me. My whole life would have been over.”
Parson’s office said in a statement that Reid met the eligibility requirements for a sentence commutation and that he had already served more time in prison than most people who have been convicted of the same crime.
The governor also said that the Reid family did not ask for the commutation.
“Mr. Reid was sentenced to three years in a correctional facility with the eligibility for parole after serving 33 percent of his sentence (1 year in this case). Mr. Reid served one year and four months. He will serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest until October 31, 2025, with strict conditions,” the governor’s office said.
Parson’s office added that the governor was sorry if the decision to let Reid out of jail early caused Aerial’s family any pain.
Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, a former chairwoman of the Missouri Democratic Party, also told ESPN she would have never allowed a plea deal in the case if it had been known at the time that Reid would spend so little time behind bars.
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