Ken Davis, Islamorada’s vice mayor and former DEA agent in charge of the Keys, dies
Ken Davis, vice mayor of Islamorada and former resident agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Florida Keys operations, died Saturday.
His brother, Bill Davis, posted on Facebook that the cause of death was heart failure and a massive stroke.
Davis, 64, had been at Baptist Hospital in Kendall since last week after collapsing while working out at a local gym, Islamorada Mayor Mike Forster said.
In September 2019, he survived an aortic tear, a condition that is usually instantly fatal.
“I’ve been called a walking, talking miracle,” Davis said in a January 2020 article by Baptist Health about him making it through the ordeal.
Davis began his law enforcement career in the U.S. Coast Guard, where he became a member of the service’s intelligence operations.
He then went on to the DEA, where he did undercover work in the 1980s and ‘90s and eventually became a supervisor.
“He was, and is, my hero,” Bill Davis wrote in his post.
After an unsuccessful run for Monroe County sheriff in 2008, Davis went back into law enforcement, this time in Iraq, where from 2009 to 2010, he was a supervisory criminal justice investigator overseeing a 30-person team of law enforcement and intelligence agents.
“My proudest accomplishment was, despite conducting over 500 operations through the ‘Red Zone,’ everyone who worked for me went home in original physical condition,” Davis said in a 2018 Miami Herald article.
Davis’ survivors also include his wife, Charlotte Porter Davis, two daughters, a son, a stepdaughter and a stepson, as well as five grandchildren and two sisters.
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 6:59 PM.
