Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Friday that he has commuted the prison sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid, who was convicted in a 2021 drunk driving incident that left a girl with severe brain injuries.
Reid, the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, was sentenced on Nov. 1, 2022 to serve three years in state prison after pleading guilty to a felony count of driving while intoxicated resulting in serious physical injury. Britt Reid had served less than half of that sentence by Friday, when he was among 39 individuals on a list released by the governor’s office of people who had their sentences pardoned or commuted − the latter of which means lessening a sentence, either in severity or duration.
‘Mr. Reid has completed his alcohol abuse treatment program and has served more prison time than most individuals convicted of similar offenses,’ a spokesperson for Parson said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports explaining the decision.
Parson’s office confirmed local media reports that Reid will be under house arrest until Oct. 31, 2025 ‘with strict conditions of probation, including weekly meetings with a parole officer, weekly behavioral counseling attendance, weekly meetings with a peer support sponsor, and stringent community service and employment requirements.’
Reid’s conviction stems from an incident on Feb. 4, 2021, when he was working as the outside linebackers coach on his father’s staff. According to charging documents, the younger Reid was intoxicated and speeding when his truck struck two sedans on the shoulder of Interstate 435 near the Chiefs’ headquarters in Kansas City. Six people were injured in the crash, including two children.
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One of those children, Ariel Young, suffered life-threatening head injuries, including a skull fracture, and she ultimately spent 11 days in a coma and more than two months in the hospital.
‘She tried to relearn how to walk and talk and eat before we left the hospital. But she couldn’t,’ Young’s mother, Felicia Miller, said in a statement read in court prior to sentencing. ‘She couldn’t run in the yard anymore like the sweet, innocent Ariel we had known.’
Young’s family wanted Reid to stand trial in connection with the incident, but he ultimately struck a plea deal with prosecutors. The charge to which Reid, now 38, pleaded guilty carried a maximum prison sentence of up to seven years. Prosecutors sought four years. A judge sentenced him to three.
Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker released a statement Saturday expressing her office’s displeasure with Reid’s sentence being commuted.
‘The Governor did not contact anyone who handled this case, or those directly impacted, including Ariel’s family. There simply can be no response that explains away the failure to notify victims of the offender,’ the statement said.
‘I simply say I am saddened by the self-serving political actions of the Governor and the resulting harm that it brings to the system of justice,’ Baker’s statement read. ‘But my office will fight for just outcomes regardless of social status, privilege or one’s connections. This system of justice still stands and will prevail over any fleeting political knock.’
Reid’s attorney, J.R. Hobbs, said he had no comment Friday on Parson’s decision to commute his client’s sentence. An attorney for Young’s family did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on the decision.
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.