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The funeral event for the man who was killed during the attempted assassination of Donald Trump are scheduled for this week - with both private and public remembrances.
A public visitation service in remembrance of Corey Comperatore, is set for Thurdsay in Freeport. A private funeral for friends and family is scheduled for the next day.
Comperatore, 50, was killed when a shooteropened fire on Trump while he spoke at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. According to Comperatore’s family, he had told them to “get down” and shielded them from the spray of bullets.
Thursday’s public service is set for Laube Hall in Freeport, with visitation from 2pm to 4pm, and then from 6pm to 8pm, according to Redmond Funeral Home, which is handling the arrangements.
A large procession of potentially 500 fire trucks will also take place to honor Comperatore, a father of two, who was the former chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department.
“He was a man that just wanted to protect and serve and love… In his last moments, he was shielding his family from the gunfire,” Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company 2nd Lieutenant Craig Cirrincione told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
“I want people to know the Corey I knew. He loved his wife. His daughters were everything to him,” added former Winfield Township Volunteer Fire Chief John Risch.
A candlelight vigil for Comperatore planned for 7pm tonight at Lernerville Speedway is meant to honor his memory, “not advance political agendas”, according to organizers.
People also can pay their respects at a small memorial outside the fire station. Comperatore’s colleagues have hung up his turnout gear and draped it in black ribbon as a symbol of mourning, and his name remains affixed to his locker in the back of the building, local outlets reported. Floral tributes have also been left.
A GoFundMe page, set up to help the Comperatore family had raised over $1.2 million as of Wednesday.
On Sunday following the shocking event, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro ordered flags across the state be flown at half-staff for the Freeport Area High School graduate and former chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company.
The New York Post initially reported that Trump would attend the funeral, but later sources said he would not be in attendance.
The former president, who has appeared twice at the ongoing Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with a patch on his ear, has now spoken to Comperatore’s widow, Helen Comperatore, over the phone.
“President Trump called me to share his condolences. He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead,” Comperatore wrote, according to a screenshot of a Facebook post.
“I told him the same thing I told everyone else. [Corey] left this world a hero and God welcomed in. He did not die in vain that day.”
The grieving widow previously told the Post that she didn’t speak to Joe Biden when he sought to make contact with her. “I didn’t want to talk to him. My husband was a devout Republican and he would not have wanted me to talk to him,” she said.
