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Xuan Thai, ESPN Senior Writer
One week after he commuted the drunken driving sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declined to offer specifics about his decision.
In a statement to ESPN, the governor’s office said, “No request, official or otherwise, was made on behalf of Mr. Reid for this commutation.” A spokesperson for the office declined to comment beyond the statement.
Reid, the son of Chiefs coach Andy Reid, served 16 months of a three-year sentence after pleading guilty to felony driving while intoxicated resulting in serious physical injury. According to prosecutors, Reid was driving about 84 mph in a 65 mph zone when he hit two parked cars near Arrowhead Stadium in February 2021. Six people were injured, including then-5-year-old Ariel Young, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for 11 days. She was hospitalized for two months after the crash.
Reid admitted to having “two or three” drinks and had a blood alcohol level of 0.113% about two hours after the crash, according to police. The legal limit in Missouri is 0.08%.
Typically, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections, applicants for executive clemency, which includes a commutation of sentence, submit a request to the Missouri parole board, which investigates the request and makes a recommendation to the governor. The governor issues a final decision on the application and may also grant clemency unilaterally.
Neither the governor’s office nor the parole board immediately released documents related to Reid’s commutation. The governor’s office indicated it had nearly 200 pages of documents related to the case but is reviewing whether it can make them public and won’t release any before April 19. The Chiefs, the Missouri Parole Board and Reid’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. Calls made to phone numbers listed for Reid were not returned.
Parson, a self-proclaimed “avid” fan of the Chiefs, attended the team’s recent Super Bowl win in Las Vegas on Feb. 11 and spoke at their victory celebration Feb. 14. According to media reports, Reid was released March 1, hours before the public was alerted to the decision in a late-Friday news release, and will remain under house arrest for the duration of his sentence.
Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker told ESPN she would have never agreed to a plea deal if she knew Reid would serve only 1½ years.
“I really want my community to see a system of justice, believe that the system of justice will work for them. It’s very difficult to have people put that kind of faith in this system,” Peters Baker said. “And it took sort of a punch to the face by this action.”
Parson’s office told ESPN in a statement that Reid met parole eligibility requirements.
“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.”
Parson has faced criticism for the commutation even from those within his own party. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who is running for governor, said the situation is “not a good look,” according to a report by The Kansas City Star. Missouri State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, a Republican who chairs the state Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, posted on social media, “I cannot imagine the pain this must cause to the family of the victim…. This is not justice.”
Amid public criticism, Parson expressed “his deepest sympathy for any additional heartache this commutation has caused the Young Family, as that was certainly not his intention,” according to the statement to ESPN.
Tom Porto, the lawyer for the Young family, said Ariel, now 8, has experienced development delays and takes special education classes. She also has balance issues and wears thick eye glasses she did not have before the accident, he said.
Ariel’s mother, Felicia Miller, released a statement through Porto expressing her frustration with the commutation: “It seems the laws don’t apply equally to the haves and have-nots. The haves get favors. The have-nots serve their sentence,” Miller said.
Porto said the governor’s statement offering his sympathy to the family was nothing more than “thoughts and prayers.”
“[It’s] suspicious to me because the governor was involved in so much of the lead-up to the Super Bowl, going to the Super Bowl, going to the after parties, going to the parade and rally and speaking at it,” Porto said. “The whole thing just reeks.”
Young’s family and the Chiefs reached a confidential settlement agreement for an undisclosed sum in November 2021. As part of that agreement, the Chiefs will continue to pay for Ariel’s medical care for the rest of her life.
Reid previously pleaded guilty to flashing a gun at another motorist in a 2007 incident, and while serving his sentence for that charge, he pleaded guilty to another unrelated charge of driving while under the influence of a controlled substance.
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