Ailing Detective Who Helped Many Gets Aid From Grateful El Segundo

El Segundo Police Detective Roger Kahl is used to going out of his way for other people, especially children.

When a Little League team needs coaching, folks turn to Kahl. If a teacher suspects a child is being abused, she knows Kahl can tell her what to do. When a youngster gets himself thrown out of the house, he knows he can go to Kahl for help.

So when the residents of El Segundo heard that the 24-year police veteran has been stricken with a rare form of leukemia and needed some help himself, they decided to provide it in a big way.

Over the next few weeks, the town will be dedicating itself to Kahl with two events--Roger’s Run and Roger’s Game--intended to raise money to save Kahl’s life.

The Oct. 14 run, a 5-K jogging and walking race for adults and a one-mile race for children, is being sponsored by the Police Department and the El Segundo Police Officers Assn.

El Segundo High School students are creating Roger’s Game by dedicating their Sept. 26 home football contest to Kahl. They hope to raise about $1,800 through admission fees and concession sales.

Organizers of both events plan to put the money they raise toward the cost of finding a bone marrow donor for their favorite police officer.

Kahl, 49, a soft-spoken man who clearly does not like it when people make a fuss over him, said he is looking at the two events as yet another way for him to help other people.

“The whole idea is to get a bone marrow drive going, to get people to sign up to be donors,” Kahl said. “Lots of people, hundreds of people, could use a bone marrow transplant to stay alive. People who sign up because of this may say they’re doing it for me, but they may match someone else, and that life is just as important to save.”

Kahl has not always been so willing to talk about his disease.

When doctors told him seven years ago that he has chronic myelogenous leukemia, they also told him there wasn’t much they could do for him. Most victims die of the disease within three to four years.

After what he describes as “an initial period of being very mad,” Kahl said he decided simply to get on with his life.

“I know that, especially in this line of work, there’s always a chance I could go out there today and get shot in an armed robbery,” Kahl said. “You can’t live your life just waiting for it to end.”

With scarcely a word to anyone in the community about his illness, Kahl continued his work as a juvenile detective, tracking down child abusers and molesters, comforting young victims and collaring adolescent transgressors.

After his two children--Shawna, 20, and Brett, 22--went off to college three years ago, Kahl and his wife, Donna, decided to adopt a 5-year-old boy, Phillip.

Although the leukemia occasionally made him feel ill or weak, Kahl said he largely was able to ignore it. But in January, the illness began enlarging his spleen.

“I knew things were beginning to accelerate,” he said. “I could feel my body saying, ‘Pull your head out of the sand, son, and start dealing with this.’ ”

Shortly afterward, Kahl said he was rummaging around the house looking for a new book to read when he came across a large packet of literature about leukemia that he had avoided reading.

This time, he read the booklets.

“They were telling me, basically, I was going to die.”

The booklets also mentioned bone marrow transplants but noted that the procedure usually requires taking marrow from a sibling. Kahl has no brothers or sisters.

“This material was pretty old, keep in mind, so I talked to my doctor about it,” Kahl said. “He said, ‘Well, things have changed. Are you interested?’ ”

What Kahl found out was that in the years since his disease was diagnosed, a computerized National Marrow Donor Program had been set up in St. Paul, Minn., to help patients find an exact tissue match outside their immediate families. More than 200,000 volunteers had registered to help people like him.

The odds of finding a non-related donor, program spokeswoman Liz Quam explained, are 20,000-to-1.

With the burgeoning number of people willing to donate, however, Quam said the chances of someone like Kahl finding a match are increasing.

“The docs still call them miracle matches, but it is becoming more common,” Quam said. “I can’t give you percentages because our program is growing so rapidly now we just don’t know.”

In Kahl’s case, four possible American donors were found, but two have been ruled out. The other two have been tested, at a cost of $200 each, to see whether either one could provide an exact match for Kahl. Results are pending.

It is possible that many additional donors will need to be tested before a match is found.

Kahl, who is bearing the cost of the tests, said he does not doubt that he will find a donor and that he will survive the risky operation to replace his own diseased marrow.

“Once I’d made the decision, I got a warm feeling inside of me that said I should be doing this,” Kahl said. “And once I beat this thing, I’m not going to stop telling people to get educated about this. If you don’t (volunteer), there are a lot of people out there who won’t live at all.”

Although many of the El Segundo students have had their share of run-ins with Kahl for transgressions ranging from playing hooky to breaking into cars, they say they plan to do everything they can to make sure Kahl survives.

“I was heading down the wrong road and Kahl kept on me, but he didn’t give up on me,” said Ruben Hernandez, an 18-year-old varsity football player at El Segundo High School. “He kept telling me, ‘Go to sports and get your aggression out in sports. Maybe you’ll do something with it.’ ”

When Hernandez discovered that he could play football well, Kahl made him a deal.

“He told me if I kept my grades good and I stayed eligible and made varsity that he would buy me my letterman’s jacket,” Hernandez said.

The teen-ager kept his part of the bargain, and Kahl gave him the $130 jacket two years ago.

“Without Mr. Kahl, I’d probably have ended up as a statistic somewhere,” Hernandez said. “My friends, sometimes they say he’s hassling them, but I tell them, ‘Hey, man, he’s just doing his job and if you guys were smart enough not to get in trouble, you wouldn’t have to deal with him.’

“He’s not a bad guy. He’s a cop that cares.”