The mother of the young girl severely injured in a 2021 crash involving former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid has heavily criticized the decision to commute his sentence after being left shocked.
Reid, the son of Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, pled guilty to driving while intoxicated causing bodily injury in September 2022 and sentenced to three years in prison over a 2021 car crash.
The accident left six people injured, including then-five-year-old Ariel Young who sustained a traumatic brain injury, was in a coma for 11 days and spent two months in hospital.
After Missouri Gov. Mike Parson commuted Reid’s sentence last week following just 16 months in prison, Young’s mother, Felicia Miller, claimed the family has been denied justice.
‘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.
‘I know they say sometimes you have to forgive and forget to move on,’ said Miller. ‘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.’
Gov. Parson, a self-proclaimed Chiefs fan, attended Kansas City’s Super Bowl LVIII win over the San Francisco 49ers last month – the team’s third in five years – and previously got a tattoo to commemorate their 2023 victory.
Following backlash towards his decision to commute Reid’s sentence, Parson expressed ‘his deepest sympathy for any additional heartache this commutation has caused the Young Family, as that was certainly not his intention,’ via ESPN.
Parson’s office also insisted to the outlet that no request, ‘official or otherwise’, was made on Reid’s behalf and that he had met the parole requirements.
However, Miller appeared to suggest that Reid had received preferential treatment due to his former position with the Chiefs and Parson’s proximity to the team.
She agreed with her attorney Tom Porto when he told ESPN that he believed Reid’s commutation was a result of Parson being a Chiefs fan.
‘If it was reversed, it would have been a completely different situation,’ she said. ‘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.’
She also revealed that she was not notified about the commutation or has she received contact from Reid or his family, insisting that she wouldn’t take their calls even if they tried.
According to court records, Reid’s blood alcohol level was 0.113 and was also traveling at 84mph in a 65mph zone when he collided with two parked cars near Arrowhead Stadium.
The incident came after Reid previously pled guilty to to flashing a gun at another motorist in a 2007 incident and another unrelated charge of driving while under the influence of a controlled substance.
Miller believed the former Chiefs assistant coach is being allowed to get away with a slap on the wrist as she expressed her fears over another family being made to suffer as hers has.
‘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,’ Miller said.
The Young family and the Chiefs reached a settlement for an undisclosed sum in November 2021, which will see the organization pay for Ariel’s medical fees for the rest of her life as part of the agreement.
Miller said that her now-eight-year-old daughter has made significant progress but still suffers development delays and has to take special education classes.
‘She always tells me, “I’m different from the other kids now,”’ said Miller. ‘Oh, my God, that hurts. Seeing it in her face and seeing that stuff that she can’t do and knowing that’s how she feels about the whole thing, that she can’t do it, it hurts me.’
The conditions of Reid’s parole include getting a job where he works at least 30 hours a week, installing an ignition interlock system in any vehicle he operates, random substance screenings, weekly meetings with a probation officer, attending behavioral counseling, meeting with a peer support sponsor, and completing at least 10 hours community service each week.
Reid is also not allowed to contact the victim or her family unless legally required.