BUTLER, Pa. — Editor's note: The above video is from July 15.
The funeral is over. The crowds have left. Now the hard work of grieving is beginning for the family of a former fire chief who was shot and killed during the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Corey Comperatore’s sister, Dawn Comperatore Schafer, is mad at the scammers trying to collect money on their behalf fraudulently.
Mostly, though, she is shattered. She is still trying to understand how it all happened. She said the family got through the funeral with the love and support of thousands of people. "They kept us standing,” she said.
But, she added, it doesn't stop after that. “The aftermath is just that. You sit with the loss,” she explained.
“We’re hoping the next several weeks coming ahead is when we can really wrap our heads around all of this. We’re trying to get out of the noise. And that’s very hard to do, as you can imagine. But that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get out of the noise.”
The noise has been constant for the Comperatore family from the moment a bullet aimed at Trump killed her 50-year-old baby brother, who was a spectator at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Officials have said he spent his final moments shielding his wife and daughter from the gunfire that left two others seriously wounded. Trump has said that one bullet clipped his right ear. Ultimately, a Secret Service counter-sniper killed the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“He was there,” she said of her brother, “because he loved this country. He wanted his country and the people’s lives to improve.”
Even since he died, pollsters and broadcasters have been weighing the political effect of the assassination attempt that claimed her brother’s life. It all feels wrong to Schafer.
“It’s not political,” she said. “And we don’t want to make it political.”
The law enforcement failings and miscommunications that gave Crooks his opening have been the subject of ongoing hearings. She doesn't want to talk about that.
“I can say we’re watching it closely," she said. "Of course we are. But no, I don’t want to speak into the law. People can watch the hearings."
But for now, her immediate concern is focused on online scammers trying to make money off her brother's death.
"Our concern truly right now is the scamming that’s going on,” she said.
Those fraudsters are creating accounts, pretending to be relatives of her brother and seeking personal donations. She said the family has turned to social media to explain that they aren't asking for money on their own behalf. If well-wishers want to donate, they should give to their local fire departments instead, said Schafer, explaining that's what her brother would have wanted.
Corey Comperatore, a project and tooling engineer, spent many years as a volunteer firefighter after serving as chief.
“Please don’t fall for it,” she said. "All these good hearted people that are crying with us and for us. We don’t know their financial situations. But we know a lot of them have donated what very little that they have. So it’s just very disheartening that somebody would try to take advantage of a situation like this.”
For the most part, she said, people have been “absolutely beautiful,” and it's brought them comfort.
“We’re all God’s children at the end of the day,” she said. “We all have families. We’re all loved by our families. So as much as we’re grieving and we are shattered, we do see a lot of light from the good people.”
In the days after Comperatore's death, he was remembered as a loving husband and father, the first to run into burning buildings or mow the lawn of an ailing neighbor. Schafer said he loved his "quiet life,” his two Dobermanns, but mostly his family.
“I don’t have to sing his praises, nor would he want me to. Everybody that knows him knows who he is,” she said, before correcting herself. "I’m sorry. Who he was. I mean, what do you want me to say? Everything that people say, it’s true. It’s true.”