‘Any word on the little girl?’: Video shows Britt Reid after drunk driving crash in 2021
Newly released video from a Kansas City police dashboard camera shows former Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid speaking with a police officer moments after severely injuring a 5-year-old girl in a 2021 drunk driving crash.
The girl, Ariel Young, suffered a traumatic brain injury when Reid slammed his pickup truck into two cars on the side of an entrance ramp along Interstate 435 near the team’s practice facility. Reid was sentenced last November to three years in prison for driving while intoxicated.
Reid, who is the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, had pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of driving while intoxicated, causing serious injury, for the Feb. 4, 2021, crash.
The eight-minute video, made public along with other records after Reid’s criminal case was completed, shows Reid standing outside a police vehicle shortly after the crash. He is wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt, gym shorts and a gray mask or face cover with the Chiefs logo. Reid has his hands in the pockets of the sweatshirt as he speaks to the officer.
In the video, the police officer notices Reid texting someone on his cellphone.
Reid: “My dad is sitting there.”
Officer: “I can’t have you on the phone right now, Ok.”
Reid: “Any word on that little girl?”
Officer: “I haven’t heard anything, sir.”
Reid alerts the officer that he has a prescription for Adderall, a medication typically given to persons with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The officer radios for an ambulance after Reid complains about a pain and swelling to his stomach.
The crash occurred shortly after Reid had left the Chiefs facility about 9 p.m. when his pickup truck struck a Chevrolet Impala, which he said he did not see because its lights were off. Reid said he continued south on the interstate and then rear-ended a Chevy Traverse. He called 911 moments later.
Ariel was a passenger in one of the two vehicles that Reid struck. Ariel’s mother, Felicia Miller, had arrived to help her cousin whose Impala had run out of gas and stalled. Miller said she got back into the driver’s seat of her Traverse and looked in the rear view mirror when she saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle.
Reid told the initial arriving officer that he “was looking over his left shoulder to evaluate traffic so he could merge.”
The impact of the rear-end crash momentarily knocked Miller unconscious after the airbag struck her and broke her seat. When she woke, Miller called for her children. She located Ariel in the Traverse under the third seat that had folded over.
Ariel was unresponsive. An ambulance arrived and rushed the girl to Children’s Mercy Hospital.
Prosecutors said Reid was driving 83 mph two seconds before the collision and had a blood alcohol content of 0.113 about two hours after the crash. The legal limit is 0.08, according to Missouri law.
Ariel remained in the hospital and was unconscious for two weeks following the crash.
Her injuries included swelling and bleeding. She also had a fracture, brain contusions and subdural hematomas.
The Chiefs and Ariel’s family reached a confidential financial agreement to cover her ongoing medical treatment and “long-term financial stability.”
