I spent some time in the state police. Just under 30 years. For me this is personal. And it’s personal because I grew up in poverty. My mother is my hero. Frankly, she’s my greatest inspiration. She arrived in the United States when she was 14 and spoke no English. By 17 she had me and my brother. By 19, if she was ever married, she was divorced because my father left our house. And it was a good thing that he did because he was an abusive drunk and was very violent.
It’s personal because I understand what it’s like to be hungry. I understand what it’s like to be poor. And my mother’s an inspiration because once my father left, she realized, as we lived in a low-income housing project in the city of New York on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, that she was going to do something about that. That she was going to change our circumstances.
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