Drug War Casualty Fought Bravely to End : Narcotics: Left paralyzed by a dealer’s bullet, Kelly Key continued to serve others as he did while an LAPD officer.

Kelly Key was an early casualty in the war on drugs.

In June, 1970, the six-year Los Angeles police officer was paralyzed by a narcotics dealer’s bullet during what had begun as a routine raid on a Willowbrook area apartment.

Key, though, never lost his will to fight or to serve, according to police officials, friends and doctors.

Confined to a wheelchair, the Gardena resident was a familiar sight at youth counseling and tutoring centers, steering youngsters away from drugs and street gangs.

Key, described by a doctor as “a tough cookie,” died late Wednesday at Gardena Memorial Hospital at the age of 49, after the latest in a long series of operations to deal with the complications of his injury.

“He joined this department to serve others, and he never ceased to do that, even though he was paralyzed,” Assistant Police Chief Jesse Brewer said. “He continued to serve others to the end.”

Key’s death came two weeks before he was to be presented the Martin Luther King Jr. Brotherhood Award for leadership and community service by the Metropolitan YMCA’s board of governors, according to Rudy De Leon, Key’s former police captain who now serves as a special assistant to California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

In the past, Key was also presented humanitarian awards and tributes by the Los Angeles Police Commission, the City Council and several community organizations.

Key was the latest in a long line of Los Angeles area peace officers to die as a result of drug-related incidents. Last year, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Agents Paul Seema, 52, and George M. Montoya, 34, were shot to death by suspects in an undercover heroin investigation; Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jack Miller, 33, was killed by gunfire while serving a search warrant on a suspected cocaine rock house, and Deputies Ray A. Chester, 41, and James D. McSweeney, 43, died in a helicopter crash during a joint drug interdiction mission in Imperial County.

Last April, Los Angeles Police Detective Norman R. Eckles, 42, died from chronic infections related to the bullet that felled him in December, 1983, while he was serving a narcotics-related search warrant in South-Central Los Angeles.

Like Key, Eckles was paralyzed for the remainder of his life as a result of his wound.

Key was born in Shreveport, La., and raised in Lufkin, Tex., and Compton.

He was a wiry, outgoing young man when he joined the Police Department in 1963, according to De Leon.

Serving on the vice and later the narcotics squad, Key was one of more than a dozen officers serving search warrants on four South Los Angeles and Long Beach residences June 1, 1970, in an effort to break up a drug ring.

When the officers knocked on the back door of a Willowbrook area apartment, where suspect Marvin Ford was barricaded, a single shot rang out. The bullet crashed through a wall and entered Key’s neck, shattering his spinal cord.

Ford was convicted, sentenced and later freed on parole, according to De Leon.

Key, on the other hand, spent years undergoing painful operations. In addition, he spent more years in tedious therapy, learning how to use his arms again. Eventually, Key, who was divorced after the shooting, was able to turn the pages of a book and steer his wheelchair.

A specially equipped motor van, with which Key could motor to appointments around the city with the help of a driver, was purchased with the fund-raising assistance of fellow police officers.

“He was always trying to stay busy and help people,” De Leon recalled. “He spent his time steering kids away from narcotics, and he always maintained a positive attitude.”

In recent years, Key served as a three-day-a-week volunteer at the Gwen Bolden Foundation, a South-Central Los Angeles after-school tutoring and counseling program for youngsters who might otherwise become dropouts and gang members.

“He brought kids to lunch, some who had never eaten in a sit-down restaurant before,” Bolden said. “The kids ran to him whenever they saw his wheelchair coming and helped him hold a glass of water, dial the phone for him and other things he couldn’t do.”

“After he knew he was going to be a quadriplegic the rest of his life, he decided he’d make the best of it,” said his son, Brian, a naval technician who was 4 years old at the time of the shooting. Despite his handicap, Key earned his associate’s degree in sociology from Harbor College.

Key was rushed to Gardena Memorial last week for emergency abdominal surgery after complications arose after a similar operation several weeks earlier. He died from septic shock and respiratory failure, said Dr. Jehan Mir.

“He was a tough cookie. It’s unusual to see someone live for 19 years after having this type of injury,” Mir said. “He demonstrated the very best in human qualities--of spirit, fortitude and perseverance. He was a fighter to the very end.”

Survivors include Key’s son, Brian; his mother, Gloria McKnight; stepfather, Henry McKnight; father, Kelly Key Jr., and stepmother, Zelma Key.

Services are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier.