Corey Comperatore's funeral a moment to reflect on Trump shooting

BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The two-lane road leading to the fire station winds past rolling cornfields, a veterans club, a church and a house flying a Trump flag and two other conservative flags before dropping sharply downhill.

There, beside Little Buffalo Creek, sits the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department, its bay doors filled with polished fire trucks and, along an interior wall, neat rows of hanging firefighter jackets. Out front, a helmet and jacket hang above memorial flowers, a name stitched in reflective yellow letters.

Deputy Chief Ricky Heasley leaned over the hood of a truck Monday, discussing funeral plans for fellow firefighter Corey Comperatore — the only person killed by a would-be assassin who opened fire Saturday at a Trump rally in the county.

“I worked with him for many years,” Heasley said of the engineer, who lived in a two-story house near the station and was an outgoing family man who authorities said died shielding his wife and children from the sniper’s bullets.

On Thursday, friends and family will pay their respects to Comperatore in Freeport, a small town on the Allegheny River, the family said. It will likely be well attended. The funeral will be held Friday at his longtime church in Butler County.

Few figures unite Americans as much as firefighters, who step in when your house is on fire and your loved ones are in danger. They are revered heroes, ingrained in the national consciousness since they stormed the World Trade Center on September 11.

Yet Comperatore’s family is burying him amid rising political tensions following the assassination attempt at the Trump rally he was attending, another trauma that has further inflamed one of America’s most divisive political moments.

President Joe Biden called his widow to offer his condolences. “He was a father,” Biden said later. “He was protecting his family from the bullets that were being fired, and he lost his life. May God protect him.”

Comperatore’s wife, Helen, declined to speak to Biden. “I didn’t want to talk to him,” she told the New York Post. “My husband was a staunch Republican and he wouldn’t have wanted me to talk to him.”

She added that she had no hard feelings toward Biden because “he didn’t do anything wrong to my husband. A despicable 20-year-old kid did it.”

“God First, Family Second”: What Defines Corey Comperatore

Comperatore had just turned 50 in the same part of the county where he grew up, a place of wooded hills, cornfields, churches and residential communities that have grown in recent decades.

He was also very interested in politics and was a Trump supporter.

That’s not uncommon in his county, where 66% of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2020. In neighboring Allegheny County, anchored by the city of Pittsburgh, that figure was 41%.

His obituary reflects a man steeped in traditional values. He served for 10 years in the U.S. Army Reserve after graduating from Freeport High School in Sarver in 1992. He worked at the same place for decades, according to his LinkedIn page, becoming a project and tooling engineer at JSP International, which makes polymers for industries ranging from automotive to construction. He was a member of Cabot Church and served in the Buffalo Volunteer Fire Department, including as chief in the early 2000s.

Brenda and Jim Disantis remember years ago when Helen, who babysat their children when they were teenagers, introduced them to her boyfriend, the couple wrote in their obituary: “I could see that the love between them was eternal, even at their young age,” they said.

The couple, who recently celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary, according to a church bulletin, raised two daughters, Allyson and Kaylee Comperatore. They lived so close to the train station that he could walk past it with his dogs. To many, his heart seemed to be with his family. “Corey was a father of girls,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters. “Corey went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community and, most of all, Corey loved his family.”

Johnston said Comperatore put “God first, his family second and everyone else third.”

Upset by Trump’s 2020 defeat, Comperatore has become more involved in politics in recent years, said Kip Johnston, a fellow Buffalo firefighter and current fire chief. The upcoming election “meant a lot to him,” he said.

So when the Trump campaign announced a rally planned for Saturday, it was only natural that he would make the 22-mile drive to the Butler County seat.

Sniper opens fire, leaving families and nation in anguish

The gunfire started as Trump was talking about immigration. A comrade heard the gunfire and shouted, “Get down!”

He piled on his family to protect them, according to Shapiro, who said at a news conference that he spoke to Comperatore’s wife after the shooting and recounted what she had told him.

The shooter, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, a health care aide from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed by Secret Service snipers, but not before opening fire from the rooftop outside the venue, grazing Trump in the ear.

Two other rally participants were seriously injured: David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Both remained hospitalized.

James Sweetland, a physician from Dubois, Pennsylvania, who was at the rally, rushed to help Comperatore. But the former fire chief had been shot in the head above the ear and did not regain consciousness.

“He was protective of his daughters, his family,” said Sweetland, whose wife was once a widow with children of her own. She was not at the rally, but she cried when she heard of his death, knowing how painful it could be, he said.

That Comperatore protected his family didn’t surprise Johnston. “He always made sure everybody got out safe,” he said.

But that wasn’t enough to ease the pain.

“Yesterday, time stopped,” her daughter Allyson Comperatore posted on Facebook. “And when it started again, my family and I began living a complete nightmare.”

‘Impossible’ to train for this: a wave of support in these turbulent times

Gary Risch Jr., a former volunteer firefighter, hadn’t set foot in the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company in a year and a half.

But it was the first place he went Sunday morning after the shooting that killed his close friend. Already, black banners were scattered across the station sign and Comperatore’s locker.

Firefighters regularly risk their lives. But this time it was different.

“We’re trained to do this stuff. We’re trained to understand it,” Risch said. “We’re trained to not accept it, but to deal with it. But when it comes to a brother like him, who’s that close, it’s almost impossible to train yourself to deal with that.”

A day later, Heasley said many people were sending checks to the fire station for the family. He added that a fundraiser would be held for the Comperatore family.

A larger fundraiser, which included Comperatore and others injured in the shooting, has already raised nearly $5 million from more than 60,000 donations as of Tuesday. Musk donated $50,000.

As the nation buzzes with political rhetoric and conspiracy theories as it searches for the shooter’s motive, his death is likely to symbolize different things to different people in this complicated political moment.

But friends and family in the Sarver community, as this week’s funeral approaches, are focused on the man they lost.

That’s especially true for those in the Buffalo Fire Department, a place of fundraising over chicken dinners and close bonds of friendship. And now, they’ll never forget a lost colleague.

“There’s a lot of history with him and a lot of great memories and things we’ll never forget,” Risch said. “I mean, there’s no one better than him.”

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