corey comperatore Archives

The family of Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old volunteer fire chief who was killed at a Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania rally, spoke out one month after his death.

While attending Trump’s rally on July 13, Comperatore was fatally shot by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, saving his two daughters in the process by using his body to shield them from gunfire. His wife, Helen Comperatore, and his daughters told ABC News Pittsburg affiliate WTAE on Friday how Corey’s death has changed their lives. Segments of the interview have been aired by both WTAE and ABC 6 Philadelphia.

“He definitely was a hero,” Helen told the reporter. “He saved his wife, he saved his child. And — he was just the best guy. He was just the best.”

“I’m angry. You know, obviously. My husband took a bullet for [Donald Trump],” Corey’s widow told the outlet. “That, unfortunately, was the plan that day.”

Corey’s daughter, Allyson, told WTAE about the moment she realized her father was shot.

“I was the one that my dad threw down,” Allyson said. “As he was throwing me down, he, that was when he was shot. And he ended up falling onto me. And I — I don’t remember hearing any other shots, I don’t remember feeling any other shots, because like in that moment I was, like I was saying before, just trying to take care of him. I turned around, and I was like confused. And I went, ‘Dad?’ And when I turned is whenever he fell down.”

“And that’s when I started screaming,” Allyson continued. “And I was instantly, like, I was trying to keep him from bleeding. And somebody had thrown down a towel. So somebody behind us must have seen what was going on, and I was just — I was just holding it there and just screaming for anybody to help.”

Corey’s eldest daughter, Kaylee, told WTAE that her father is “more than just the guy that got shot at the rally.”

“He isn’t the guy that got shot at the rally,” Kaylee said. “He was a husband, a father, a son, an uncle. And he was the glue to our family. He was our strength. He was everything to us and that is what got taken from this world.”

Crooks, who was sitting atop a building 400 feet away, grazed Trump in the ear with a bullet in a failed assassination attempt. The 2024 Republican presidential nominee, sporting an ear bandage, paid tribute to Comperatore by kissing his firefighter gear on stage at the Republican National Convention in July. Helen told WTAE that Trump’s act “was a big honor.”

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