Homicide detective Gregory Key was in church Dec. 3, 2006, when he got the call.

His 19-year-old daughter, Lindsay, mother of a 9-month-old girl, was killed in a gang drive-by shooting in Arizona.

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Lindsay Key, daughter of West Palm Beach homicide detective Sgt. Greg Key, was 19 when killed in a drive-by shooting in ... Read More

A community college student in Chandler, southeast of Phoenix, her former high school classmates invited her to a house party on Erie Street. It was one of her first times out and about since giving birth.

She was sitting on the front patio as 50 people milled around inside and out when, just past midnight, an SUV rolled by.

Four men sprayed the house with bullets. Six people were hit. Only Lindsay died.

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U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, invited Police Sgt. Greg Key to the President’s State of the Union address.

After seven years and countless court proceedings, four men were convicted.

But “there is no closure,” says Key, who will join U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel (D-West Palm Beach) on Tuesday at a State of the Union Address where President Obama is expected to renew his plea for tighter gun controls.

“In Palm Beach County there were over 108 homicides in 2015,” Key said Friday. “None of those families has closure. They’re just learning to deal with it day by day. Regardless of if there was a prosecution in the case or if it’s a whodunit.

“I’m still going to remember that she’s not with us on Christmas, that she’s not here when I see my granddaughter. I cannot obtain closure. I can only obtain, with God’s help, the ability to deal with it on a day to day basis.”

A former minor league baseball player who has been with the West Palm Beach Police Department for 29 years, Key has known Frankel since her days as mayor, when he led dignitary protection and frequently would be called to drive her. He joined protection details for many others, as well, from Presidents Obama and Bush to Vice President Cheney and senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden.

Each congressman gets to invite one person to the State of the Union and this year Frankel chose Key. She said she’ll introduce him to congressional leaders. “He’s the right person at the right time to really put a face on this gun violence issue,” she said.

“How could I forget his devastation and his sorrow when he lost his daughter,” Frankel said, adding that she frequently bumps into Key in Publix when she’s home. “And the irony of it: He’s a homicide detective who has to deal with it every day of his life…. This is one of the most decent men who serves the community. Every day he puts his life on the line. And he was in church when he got the news.”

With one mass shooting after another, the issue of gun violence has frequently dominated national headlines over the past year. President Obama last week held a televised town hall on CNN, following a tearful speech Tuesday on the topic, in which he cited shootings at Fort Hood, Texas; Binghamton, N.Y.; Aurora, Colo.; Oak Creek, Wis.; Newtown, Conn.; Santa Barbara, Calif.; Charleston, S.C., and San Bernardino, Calif. Obama announced several executive actions and pressed Congress to step out from the shadow of the National Rifle Association and adopt gun reforms.

The issue is heating up in Florida as well, where the GOP-dominated Legislature is advancing bills that would allow guns on college campuses and open carrying of guns on city streets.

Frankel was among 10 Democratic congressmen who sent a letter Dec. 15 to Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, urging against the campus carry bills (HB 4001 and SB 68). “College students are already known to disproportionately engage in high-risk behaviors such as binge drinking and to struggle with mental health issues including thoughts of suicide,” the congressmen wrote. “Increasing students’ access to guns only increases the likelihood that volatile situations on campus will end in tragedy.”

State Rep. David Kerner (D-Palm Springs) called a press conference Thursday at West Palm Beach police headquarters to voice opposition to the open carry bills (CS/HB 300 and CS/HB 163). Joined by Mayor Jeri Muoio, Police Chief Bryan Kummerlen, three county commissioners, a League of Women Voters official and police union representatives, Kerner called for citizens to urge lawmakers to vote against the bills.

Key, for his part, says he’s “100 percent” behind Obama’s proposed changes, which include boosting mental health services, requiring background checks for purchases at gun shows and online and bolstering enforcement budgets. As a police officer, he says, he strongly opposes the Florida bills that would allow licensed gun owners to walk the streets with gun in hand rather than keeping the weapons concealed.

“It’s just a fact of nature that action is always is going to be faster than reaction,” he says. “So if that person has a gun and he takes some action and I have to react, I’m always going to be behind. You’re putting a police officer at a disadvantage.”

He loves to visit his granddaughter, Patrice, now 9 years old, who lives in Arizona with her grandmother, Key’s ex-wife. Patrice looks and acts just like her late mother, he says. “She’s just a beautiful little girl,” Key said. “She loves to dance. She’s got a heart just like her mother. She loves people. She’s just a kind-hearted little girl.”

The impact of gun violence doesn’t register for some people who watch it go by on TV, Frankel says. “Every single day in the U.S., 90 families’ lives are shattered by gun violence.”

The Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre, in Newtown, Conn., took place in December 2012, a month after Frankel was first elected. Many parents of children slain at Sandy Hook came to Congress to press for gun control legislation in the months that followed, Frankel recalls.

“I’ve had a picture of one of the young girls in my office since that time,” she says. “I vowed to keep it there until we make progress on gun violence. I’m going to put Greg’s daughter’s picture next to her.”