Governor commutes DWI prison sentence of Andy Reid’s son
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 drunken driving incident that left a girl with severe brain injuries.
The son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, Britt Reid was sentenced on Nov. 1, 2022, to serve three years in state prison after pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated resulting in serious physical injury. He had served less than half 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. Local media outlets, including The Kansas City Star, reported that Britt Reid will serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest. Spokespeople for Parson’s office did not immediately reply to messages from USA TODAY Sports seeking further comment.
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, including two children.
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 before 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.
Reid’s attorney, J.R. Hobbs, said he had no comment Friday on the decision to commute his client’s sentence. An attorney for Young’s family did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.