"Hero" victim identified at Trump rally shooting
A former Pennsylvania volunteer fire chief has been named as the man who got caught in the crossfire of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a campaign rally.
While Trump was delivering a speech to supporters in a small town in the state of Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was stationed on a rooftop near the event armed with a sniper.
Crooks fired multiple rounds on the former president and spectators, missing Trump, before he was ultimately killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Caught up in the crossfire was 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, who died at the rally while trying to protect his daughter from the shooting.
Comperatore's sister Dawn Comperatore Schafer took to Facebook to pay tribute to her brother and praise his heroism in his final moments.
“The hatred for one man took the life of the one man we loved the most. He was a hero that shielded his daughters,” she wrote on Facebook.
“His wife and girls just lived through the unthinkable and unimaginable,” she added.
Comperatore’s wife, Helen, said her husband was as a “real-life superhero” who protected them.
“Yesterday, what [was meant to] be such an exciting day for my husband, especially, turned into a nightmare for our family,” Helen wrote on Facebook.
“What my precious girls had to witness is unforgivable,” she added. “He died the hero he always was.”
Comperatore’s daughter, Allyson, echoed her statement, calling her father “the best dad a girl could ever ask for” as she mourned his sudden death.
Allyson said that when the gunshots rang out, Comperatore quickly threw her and her mother to the ground to try to protect them after Trump was shot.
“He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us,” Allyson wrote on Facebook.
“And I want nothing more than to cry on him and tell him thank you.”
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also hailed Comperatore, who was an avid Trump supporter, as a local hero and has ordered flags to be flown half staff in his honour.
“Corey died a hero,” Shapiro said. “Corey was the very best of us.”
A GoFundMe page to support Helen and Allyson has already raised more than $890,000.
Image credits: GoFundMe/Xinhua News Agency/Shutterstock Editorial