KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A pair of white SUVs pulled alongside a curb neighboring the Jackson County Courthouse, and seven people wearing matching white T-shirts — Justice for Ariel — popped open their car doors.
In the backseat of the trailing vehicle, 6-year-old Ariel Young emerged last, gripping tightly the hand of her mother.
On a school-day afternoon, Ariel strode toward a downtown Kansas City courthouse with a slight but noticeable limp, one foot dragging behind and scratching her clean white Jordan tennis shoe across the asphalt. As she reached the entrance staircase, she grasped one family member’s hand to her left and another to her right, securing her balance. Her mother placed a hand on her hip, guiding her up each step.
Twenty months ago, we were introduced to Ariel in a way no parent should have to introduce their child to the world — through the descriptions of a GoFundMe page. But here it was in plain sight for the first time: The evident destruction of a fateful winter night that began with then-Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid consuming alcohol before getting behind the wheel of his pickup truck.
In a few hours, Reid would be sentenced to three years in prison for driving while intoxicated and causing the February 2021 crash that severely injured Ariel.
He’s lost the next three years of his life as a free man.
Ariel has lost her childhood. Or at least the childhood she once knew.
The first in-person picture of the effects of Reid’s reckless actions is jarring. It hits you seeing Ariel, more powerful than any words uttered or arguments made Tuesday. It is difficult to look elsewhere, really, while sitting four rows behind her in the courtroom — close enough to see the braids in her hair, kept intact by a white bow resting on top of her head and a purple bow woven through the strands.
She looked around the courtroom a few times, and you couldn’t help but wonder if she understood the depth of what was happening.
How could she?
Six years old.
It should have been about the time for lunch or recess with her grade-school friends when she walked inside the courtroom. About one-fourth of her learning now necessitates special education. It requires her more time to process information, according to a statement her mother, Felicia Miller, provided that was read out loud to the court.
The family’s lawyer requested that the media blur the face of Ariel in photos and videos. The Kansas City Star obliged. Think of that: The victim of a DWI crash fought for her life, yet too young for this kind of attention.
“This is our life,” Miller wrote, as assistant prosecutor Brady Twenter read.
Reid, the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, had sought probation Tuesday. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker called the three-year sentence proper justice, satisfied with Circuit Court Judge Charles H. McKenzie’s ruling. The family wanted a stiffer penalty. This is how these things often go.
Reid spoke without a script for nearly five minutes. He opened with an apology, before turning to Ariel and saying, “As your mom said, you are tough. You will get through this.”
Reid was driving 83 miles per hour two seconds before the crash, with a serum blood alcohol content of 0.113 two hours later, prosecutors said. His life, too, is forever changed, but unlike Ariel, he can (and did) look inward for the responsibility.
He appeared genuinely contrite, sincere when doing so. He voice broke as he mentioned his own three kids, one of which is the same age as Ariel.
“Every time I see my daughter, I think about Ariel and how my decision affected her so deeply and her family,” he said after a pause to apparently gather his emotions.
Peters Baker earlier introduced some members in the court room. Reid stared straight ahead. But when Peters Baker announced the name of Ariel Young, Reid turned his head to lock his eyes on her, his first time turning backward during the proceedings. He would later apologize for “everyone having to be here.”
In a plea agreement last month, prosecutors agreed to seek no more than four years for a prison sentence. They argued for that maximum Tuesday, noting that Reid has put himself in this situation before, with another DUI in 2007.
But as Miller’s victim statement echoed through a fourth-floor courtroom, one thing became clear: Nothing would feel satisfying. The tragedy of this story does not end with this case, nor with the prison sentence, whether it’s three days, three years or three lifetimes.
It is ongoing for so many affected by that February night, and eternal for some.
His kids.
His wife.
His family.
Her family.
Five people who were injured in that crash.
And a little girl who sat in the backseat of a car on the side of the road after her mother had gone to help a cousin who’d run out of gas.
There are no winners in a case like this. Nobody was ever going to leave that courtroom smiling late Tuesday afternoon. That is what the path of destruction — one series of bad choices — can leave behind, even when it’s never the intention to leave such a path.
A young mother was at the scene to watch a car barrel 80 miles per hour into one occupied by her daughter, and the first thought that entered her head, like any other parent, sent a shiver as it was read from her statement.
Where were our babies?
Miller spent the next 11 days parked next to a hospital bed, her then 5-year-old daughter in a coma. On the 12th day, Ariel awoke, and for all of the joy Miller might have momentarily felt, her daughter did not recognize her.
Miller will live with that image forever.
For Ariel, it’s more about what she will live without. She has learned — or rather, re-learned — how to talk, eat and walk. As Reid will be confined to a cell, Ariel will see a doctor about securing leg braces. She still cannot run. Cannot play sports. Cannot enjoy a family trip without motion sickness in the car.
Cannot return to the life she had 20 months ago.
