Corey Comperatore, the devoted father and husband who died shielding his wife and daughter from gunfire at the Trump rally in Butler, has been laid to rest.
Bear Creek Road in Cabot, Pennsylvania was lined with mourners on Friday morning as the funeral procession made its way to Cabot Methodist Church, not far from where Mr Comperatore lived with his wife and two daughters, in Sarver. They began arriving three hours before the procession, and included fire trucks, police cruisers and motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard Riders, who honour veterans and fire responders.
Comperatore was remembered by mourners as a devoted family man, good neighbour and upstanding member of the local community. He was a ten-year veteran of the US Army Reserves and spent a number of years as a fire chief.
“There is nothing that man couldn’t do, and there is nothing he wouldn’t do. If you needed something done at your house, he was the dude,” Sally Fox told The Epoch Times. Mrs Fox and her husband own a local business where Mrs Comperatore worked for many years.
“He installed an invisible fence around our house. He raked the best leaf piles to jump in during the fall.”
The Fox family were present at the Trump rally in Butler, but they weren’t close to the Comperatores at the time of the assassination attempt.
“When we found out who was killed, we were stunned. It’s like a knife in our hearts. It hurts,” she added.
A candlelight vigil was held at Lemerville Speedway in Sarver on 17 July, and then a public viewing was held at Laube Hall at Freeport Community Park, which thousands of mourners attended.
“After the funeral service on July 19, a crowd of mourners outside became silent as firefighters loaded his casket draped with an American flag onto a fire truck. The sound of bagpipes, a three-volley gun salute, and a bugle playing Taps broke the quiet,” according to The Epoch Times.
At his speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, former president Donald Trump paid tribute to Mr Comperatore, bringing his fireman’s hat and jacket onto the stage with him.
“He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets,” Trump said, calling Mr Comperatore a “fine man.”
“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for others,” he added.
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