{"id":168986,"date":"2026-04-17T23:28:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168986\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T23:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:28:26","slug":"eagles-wr-darius-cooper-meets-with-family-of-slain-pa-trooper-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168986\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles WR Darius Cooper meets with family of slain Pa. trooper \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a fun Friday for hundreds of students at Brandywine Wallace Elementary School in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Darius Cooper and Miss Pennsylvania Victoria Vespico visited the school to speak with the children about the power of kindness and acceptance as part of Autism Acceptance Month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was so exciting. It was just a blessing to be out here with the kids,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cThey put a smile on my face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper also put smiles on the faces of the family of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcphiladelphia.com\/news\/local\/funeral-services-pennsylvania-state-police-corporal-timothy-oconnor-jr\/4369865\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Timothy O\u2019Connor Jr., who was killed in the line of duty back in March.<\/a> Cooper and Vespico met with O\u2019Connor\u2019s two children, Casey and Kenzie, as well as his widow, Casey, before Friday\u2019s assembly.<\/p>\n<p>Casey described her husband as an Eagles fan and even said \u201cGo Birds,\u201d while speaking during his funeral. She told NBC10 on Friday that her family was thrilled to meet Cooper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe grew up going to the Vet, so meeting somebody from the Philadelphia Eagles is really special and important to us,\u201d Casey said. \u201cEspecially this time of our life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As she continues to mourn the loss of her husband, Casey said the support from the Eagles has meant a lot to her and her family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Philadelphia Eagles have gone above and beyond, not only with this meet and greet but they actually sent us a personalized football yesterday that I got in honor of my husband,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, it was really sweet. We\u2019re very thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, for Cooper, providing a moment of comfort for the O\u2019Connor family made a great event even greater. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt always feels great to know that you have support and have someone to pick you up when you\u2019re down,\u201d he said. \u201cToday was just amazing and it really blessed my heart and blessed my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a fun Friday for hundreds of students at Brandywine Wallace Elementary School in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4064,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-168986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}