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PITTSBURGH – A year has passed since an attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s life left two men severely injured and a third dead at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
James Copenhaver, David Dutch, and family members of the late Corey Comperatore still have many unanswered questions about July 13, 2024, the day that changed their lives forever.
“You missed Trump, but you got my big brother,” Dawn Comperatore Schafer, Comperatore’s sister, told Fox News Digital of gunman Thomas Crooks, who died when responding officers at the rally returned fire. “My brother was assassinated that day. Not Donald Trump, but Corey Comperatore was assassinated that day. You did not miss.”
Comperatore, 50, was the former fire chief for the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, a husband, and a father to two daughters.

Trump supporters are seen covered with blood in the stands after guns were fired at Republican candidate Donald Trump. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
“He did this less than six seconds after shots began… at a distance of approximately 110 yards,” Lenz said.
A Secret Service counter sniper then fired the fatal shot that neutralized Crooks on the roof of the AGR building, where he was perched with a direct line of sight to Trump.

A graphic representation of the position of the sniper team in relation to the would-be assassin at the Trump rally in Butler, PA on July 13, 2024. (Fox News)
Witnesses largely suggested that the Secret Service’s lack of direction given to local agencies ultimately led to the security failures that allowed 20-year-old Crooks to position himself on a nearby rooftop and fire at the former president. Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on July 23, 2024.
On the day of the rally, Crooks parked his vehicle and flew a drone between approximately 3:50 p.m. and 4 p.m. about 200 yards from where the former president would be speaking. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified during a July 17 congressional hearing that Crooks had been at the rally site for about 70 minutes the morning of the assassination attempt.
Investigators located eight casings on the roof where Crooks fired from.