Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has revealed he grew up in an abusive household, describing his late father as “a violent guy” in an emotional interview with CNN to mark Father’s Day.
Kelly, 62, a U.S. Navy pilot during the Gulf War and later a NASA astronaut before entering politics, remembered his troubled upbringing in West Orange, New Jersey, in a sitdown with anchor Jake Tapper that aired Sunday on State of the Union.
The senator said that his father Richard, an Air Force veteran and police officer, would drink to excess and become violent towards his wife Patricia, also a cop, even drawing his gun amid fits of alcoholic rage, according to Kelly, who frequently witnessed the distressing scenes alongside his twin brother Scott.
Kelly remembered his father as “a complex figure” who could be “violent with my mom” before accepting he had a drinking problem and seeking professional help.
He described being woken in the night by the sound of his parents fighting on a number of occasions when he was aged between eight and 13. In one incident, he said he saw his mother dragged across the floor.
On several other occasions, he recalled his father pulling a pistol and placing it in his own mouth, which Kelly said was “terrifying” and left him “scared about losing my dad,” rather than concerned for his own safety.
During another explosive argument, he was dispatched by his mother to go to his grandparents’ home nearby for help.
“Because I was six minutes older [than Scott] I was assigned, you know, the duty to run to my grandparents’ house,” Kelly said. “I remember running with, like, no shirt and shorts and no shoes, at 3:00 in the morning down Pleasant Valley Way all the way to my, where my grandparents live.”
Asked by Tapper whether he was running the near-three-mile distance to save his brother and his mother, Kelly answered: “Yes. To get help. Because he might hurt them. Yes. I mean he was violent. Yes, he was a violent guy.”
Richard Kelly was prone to drink-driving, his son said, and matters came to a head when he eventually crashed a police car into a tree, leading to a lengthy spell in rehab, after which he returned to his family and apologized for his past behavior, prompting a fragile reconciliation.
The senator said his father “was often the ‘woe is me’ guy... There were a lot of things my parents did that very early on I was like, ‘That is not gonna be me.’”
Kelly said he first realized the abuse he had witnessed as a boy was “not acceptable” when he had children of his own in his 30s, having previously attempted to rationalize it to himself as “normal.”
“The most important job I’ve ever had is being a dad to my two daughters, Claudia and Claire,” he reflected, also speaking of his pleasure in spending time with his young granddaughter.
Kelly is married to former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who retired from politics after being shot in the head at a constituency event in Tuscon on January 8, 2011.
She was one of 19 people injured in the same mass shooting incident, in which six more were killed.
Since her recovery, Giffords, 56, has continued to campaign for an end to gun violence.
