BUFFALO TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The two-lane road to the fire hall winds past rolling corn fields, a veterans club, a church and a home flying a Trump and two other conservative flags before it dips sharply downhill.
There, next to Little Buffalo Creek, is the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department, its bay doors filled with polished firetrucks and, along one interior wall, neat rows of hanging firefighter jackets. Out front, a helmet and jacket hang above memorial flowers, a name stitched in reflective yellow lettering.
Assistant Chief Ricky Heasley leaned over the hood of a truck on Monday, talking over 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 a lot of years,” said Heasley of the engineer who lived in a two-story home near the station and was an outgoing family man who officials said died protecting his wife and children from the sniper’s bullets.
On Thursday, his friends and family will hold a visitation to pay their respects to Comperatore in Freeport, a small town on the Allegheny River, the family announced. It probably will draw large numbers. Funeral services will be held Friday at his longtime Butler County church.
There are few figures as unifying in America as a firefighter,who shows up when your house is ablaze and your loved ones are in danger. They are revered heroes, ingrained in the national consciousness since rushing into the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Yet Comperatore’s family is laying him to rest amid mounting political tensions after the assassination attempt at the Trump rally he attended, another trauma that has further inflamed one of America’s most divisive political moments.
President Joe Biden called his widow to offer 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. God love him.”
Comperatore’s wife, Helen, declined to talk to Biden. “I didn’t want to talk to him," she told the New York Post. "My husband was a devout Republican and he would not have wanted me to talk to him.”
She added that she didn’t have any ill will toward Biden because “he didn’t do anything bad to my husband. A 20-year-old despicable kid did.”
'God first, his family second': What defined Corey Comperatore
Comperatore had recently turned 50 in the same part of the county where he had grown up, a place of forested hills, cornfields, churches and residential communities that have grown in recent decades.
He was also very interested in politics and a Trump supporter.
That's not uncommon in his county, where 66% voted for Trump in 2020. By contrast, in nearby Allegheny County, anchored by the city of Pittsburgh, that figure was 41%.
His obituary reflects a man steeped in traditional values. He served a decade in the U.S. Army Reserves after his graduation 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 from autos 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 recalled years ago when Helen, who babysat for them as a teenager, introduced them to her boyfriend, the pair wrote on his obituary page: “I could see the love between them was forever even at their young age,” they said.
The couple, who recently celebrated their 22nd anniversary, according to a church bulletin, raised two daughters, Allyson and Kaylee Comperatore. They lived so near the station he could walk his dogs past it.His heart seemed to many to be wrapped up in his family. "Corey was a girl dad," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters. "Corey went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community and, most especially, Corey loved his family."
Johnston said Comperatore put "God first, his family second and everybody third."
Upset by Trump's loss in 2020, Comperatore got more involved in politics in recent years, said Buffalo Fire colleague and current Chief Kip Johnston. The coming election "meant a lot to him," he said.
So when Trump’s campaign announced a rally scheduled for Saturday, it was natural that he would make the 22-mile drive to the county seat of Butler.
Sniper opens fire, leaving families and a nation in anguish
The gunfire started just as Trump was talking about immigration. Comperatore heard it and yelled, “Get down!”
He piled on top of his family to shield them, according to Shapiro, who said at a news conference that he spoke to Comperatore’s wife after the shooting and recounted what she told him.
The shooter, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, a health aide from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed by Secret Service countersnipers, but not before he opened fire from atop a roof outside the venue, grazing Trump’s ear.
Two other rallygoers were critically wounded: David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania; and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Both remained in the hospital.
James Sweetland, a doctor from Dubois, Pennsylvania, who was at the rally, rushed to help Comperatore. But the former fire chief had been shot in the head above his ear and didn’t regain consciousness.
“He was protecting his daughters, his family,” said Sweetland, whose own wife had once been widowed with children. She wasn't at the rally, but she cried when she learned he had died, knowing how painful it could be, he said.
That Comperatore shielded his family didn’t surprise Johnston. "He always made sure everybody came out safe," he said.
But that did little to lessen the pain.
"Yesterday, time stopped," Allyson Comperatore, his daughter, said on Facebook. "And when it started again my family and I started living a real-life nightmare."
'Impossible' to train for this: An outpouring of support in time of turmoil
Gary Risch Jr., a former volunteer firefighter, hadn't stepped foot in the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company for 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 bunting was strewn from the station's sign and across Comperatore's locker.
Firefighters regularly risk their lives. But this was different.
"For guys like us, we're trained to do this stuff. We're trained to understand it," Risch said. "We're trained not to accept it but to deal with it. But when it's a brother like this, that's this close, it's pretty much impossible to train to deal with this."
A day later, Heasley said many are sending checks to the fire station for the family. He said a fundraiser will be set up for the Comperatore family.
Already, a larger fundraiser including Comperatore and others wounded in the shooting had raised nearly $5 million from more than 60,000 donations by Tuesday. Elon Musk gave $50,000.
As the nation buzzes with political rhetoric and conspiracy theories amid the search 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 community of Sarver, ahead of this week’s funeral, are focused on the man they lost.
That’s especially true for those who are part of the Buffalo fire department, a place of chicken-dinner fundraisers and close friendship. And now, one lost colleague they won't ever forget.
"There's a lot of history with him and a lot of great memories and stuff we'll never forget," Risch said. "I mean, they don't get much better than him."
The nation, too, will never forget.
Contributing: Matthew Rink, Erie Times-News, USA TODAY Network
