BUTLER COUNTY, Pa.—Bagpipes pierced the air. Motorcycle engines roared. And a country music star crooned a specially written ballad, topped off with booming fireworks.
As echoes of the daylong tribute to Corey Comperatore faded late on the night of July 12, the slain hero’s wife, daughters, and their close-knit community quietly inched toward healing.
Unresolved questions have thwarted that process for a year, although government officials released a few updates just before the one-year anniversary of Comperatore’s slaying and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump.
Butler residents grew teary-eyed as they told The Epoch Times about the impact of Comperatore’s death, and many said they still wonder about the circumstances surrounding it.
On July 13, 2024, a rooftop gunman took aim at Trump during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show. Then a candidate seeking his second presidential term, Trump suffered a gunshot wound to his right ear.
Comperatore, 50, died as he shielded his wife and daughters. Two other rallygoers suffered serious injuries before officers killed the perpetrator with return gunfire.
“We have just had so much support ever since 364 days ago,” daughter Allyson Comperatore, 28, told people at a July 12 concert in memory of her dad, which followed a parade, a program at the South Butler Community Library, and a motorcycle run called Corey’s Cruise.
The gatherings were billed as “A Day of Unity” and raised funds for community groups via the nonprofit Corey Comperatore Foundation.
Corey Comperatore’s 25-year-old daughter, Kaylee Comperatore, said her father would have been surprised to see the turnout. About 100 came to a July 11 movie, and hundreds more participated in each of the other events, often waving miniature American flags that organizers handed out.
“He couldn’t even imagine having all these people come and support him, because he would never think that he deserved any of this,” she told the crowd that gathered to hear Nashville recording artist Gary Burk III.
Some attendees sang along, teary-eyed, as Burk performed a tribute that he wrote to honor the fallen hero titled “Until We Meet Again (Corey’s Song).”
New Sense of Purpose
A volunteer who helped with the events, Molly Nowakowski, told The Epoch Times, “We want to carry on Corey’s legacy—to help the community—so he can live on forever.”People who didn’t know Comperatore now are aware of his devotion to his wife, two daughters, and their dogs, Nowakowski said. They also respect him for his service to a local fire department, the Army Reserve, and his church.
Many of the event volunteers were strangers, but Comperatore’s cause brought them together, and now they’re “a family,” she said.
Nowakowski’s husband, Keith Wilbert, said, “Just being involved in all this brings a little joy on a somber day for me.”
The events also uplifted the Comperatores.
Allyson Comperatore told concertgoers that she, her sister, and mother were initially so grief-stricken and traumatized that they had trouble “getting out of bed” each day.
“We didn’t really know how to look forward to something anymore, after what we had witnessed,” she said.
But the idea for a motorcycle run blossomed, and it spawned other ideas, creating a new sense of purpose for the surviving family members, Allyson Comperatore said.
“It really has brought our family a lot of healing,” she said about the memorial events, “and it feels so good to be able to give back to our community—after everything that our community has given to us in this last year.”
Her mother, Helen Comperatore, told the concert crowd how much she appreciated the outpouring of good wishes and the efforts of the many volunteers who made the events a reality. In particular, she acknowledged the work of Scott Docherty, a local business owner whom she characterized as a dynamo.
“He had these ideas after ideas, and he scared me a little bit,” Corey Comperatore’s widow said. “But if I asked Scott to buy me a purple pony with pink socks, he would call somebody on the phone and he would have it to me the very next morning. He gave me anything and everything that I wanted. And I’m not lying; he’s that special to me.”
She then called him onstage.
“This is all about Corey,” Docherty told the crowd.
Referring to events held throughout the day, he said: “It was so breathtaking, so honorable for Corey, to see hundreds of people waving the American flag, and all I can say is, ‘I love you guys.’”
Helen Comperatore interjected: “No, I love you. And that’s why I brought you up.”
Earlier, parade-goers stood on brick sidewalks along small-town storefronts. They waved and cheerily acknowledged the trio of Comperatore ladies—mother Helen Comperatore and her two daughters—as they passed by in a white 1992 Ford Mustang convertible. They were surrounded by four private security guards. Amid the outpouring of concern, the family has been the target of some hate-filled rhetoric with political undertones, Docherty said.
Despite the smiles, the tone remained solemn and reverent as bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” and “Taps,” melodies often used for military and police funerals.
At the library, Comperatore’s 51-year-old widow told an audience: “My husband would just be in such awe of all of this, but he was just such a humble man. And, for someone who didn’t think he had friends in the world, like, this is just so much.
Images Invite Reflection
The family presented the library with a small statue depicting a pair of children reading books. Helen Comperatore explained why the image is significant to her.“There’s nothing like a place to come pick up a book and read in peace,” she told the crowd. “I love to get lost in a book. It’s something that has brought me so much peace. ... I found a lot of help in books, especially grief books, this year.”
Another sculpture, rendered to look like her husband’s firefighter turnout gear, was featured during the parade and displayed at the library. The artist who made the piece, Christopher Tomko, told The Epoch Times about the moment that inspired his work—and the meaning he hopes it conveys.
Several days after the shooting, Trump brought Comperatore’s turnout coat and helmet onstage with him as he spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“When Trump had kissed his helmet, I realized how much of an impact, how much of a loss there was,” Tomko said, adding that it also represented that “Trump realized how lucky he was, or how blessed” he was to narrowly escape death.
“It was a miracle, and he knew it,” Tomko said.
“I just wanted to kind of capture the suit the way that it was on the convention stage. So people will remember how much Corey was appreciated by the president—and then we should appreciate and remember him, too.
“Butler needed that. So I made it.”
On the coat, Comperatore’s last name is rendered as “Compertore,” without the “a.” That’s intentional, because it reflects how the firefighter’s surname actually appeared on the coat. According to local lore, there was insufficient space to include every letter—and fellow firefighters thought it was funny to misspell the former chief’s name. Instead of getting upset or ordering that it somehow be fixed, Comperatore left it unchanged, Tomko said.
The artist’s son, David Tomko, 16, helped craft the piece, which looks like burnished silver but was made with a 3D printer and sand infused with resin. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) and others helped fund the project, Christopher Tomko said.
Appeal to Secret Service
Before the local events got underway on July 12, Helen Comperatore said a lack of information from the Secret Service, which was in charge of security at the rally, has interfered with the healing process.Helen Comperatore urged the Secret Service to meet with her. She said she wants the agency to tell her “everything that happened that day.”
“I want to know why they failed. I want to know what happened. Why Butler? Why was that such a failure that day? What was the reason?” Helen Comperatore said.
The widow wants to know why the gunman who shot her husband “was allowed to walk around [the rally site] for an hour without someone grabbing him.”
She also said that her husband was so willing to help others, that, if given the chance, “he would have helped that kid,” referring to the 20-year-old shooter.
Months after multiple government reports pointed out failings of the Secret Service at the Butler rally, the agency announced on July 10 that a half-dozen employees were suspended in connection with those failures.
On July 12, just after the parade honoring Comperatore wrapped up, more news broke.
The report, which the Government Accountability Office produced at Grassley’s behest, also exposed “procedural and planning errors, including misallocation of resources, lack of training, and pervasive communication failures.”
Those factors “contributed to an unsecure environment,” which allowed the would-be assassin to carry out the shooting, leading to Comperatore’s death, the statement said.
Helen Comperatore reacted to the latest revelations.
“I am in complete and utter shock,” she told The Epoch Times in a text message on the afternoon of July 12. “I shouldn’t be at this point but I am. Someone big was involved here and I am just dying to know the story. ... Time might not be on my side but I will get the truth.”
Kelly headed a task force that probed the shooting, resulting in 40 recommendations to the Secret Service, many of which have been implemented, while others are in the works.
“Like many in the Butler community, I still have questions about everything that led up to, and unfolded on, July 13,” he told The Epoch Times in an email. “May we continue to pursue the truth to get the American people the answers they deserve.”
Personal Impact
Dave Zirnsak, who attended a July 11 movie screening as a fundraiser in Comperatore’s honor, described the ripple effects of last year’s shooting by saying, “Every one of us, we’re one piece of America.”So when the shooting happened, “America got shot,” he told The Epoch Times. Local people feel the personal impact of Comperatore’s shooting, Zirnsak said, but they also consider the larger picture—the enormity of the attempted assassination of Trump.
His friend, Gail Paserba, got choked up during an interview at The Penn Theater, where she is a board member. Paserba said she identified with Helen Comperatore because she, too, has struggled with grief as a widow.
“I know what it feels like to have people come around and hold me up as my knees are buckling,” Paserba told The Epoch Times. She said she sees others doing the same for Helen Comperatore and her girls.
“The community has just enveloped them. ... They will never hit their knees on the floor, because the community will always be holding them up,” Paserba said.
She said people, whether they knew the Comperatore family or not, now feel close to them.
“I never met the man,” Paserba said. “But I call him ‘Corey.’”
