COMER FEATURED ON `TOP COPS' TONIGHT

Deputy U.S. Marshal Clarence Comer, who is stationed in Cape Girardeau, will be featured tonight on the CBS television network program "Top Cops."

The program, which runs from 7-8 p.m., will recount action taken by Comer on Jan. 29, 1987, when a man hijacked a U.S. Postal Service vehicle in Scott City and took a postal employee hostage.

Armed with a shotgun, Scott City resident Jeffrey Wheeler hijacked the vehicle near the I-55 interchange in Scott City and kidnapped Randol S. Bohn of Scott City. The vehicle exited at Route K in Cape Girardeau and turned onto Mount Auburn Road toward Doctors' Park.

Comer was at the Holiday Inn and heard the radio traffic. He blocked Mount Auburn Road with his car. Wheeler crashed into the car and Comer demanded the suspect drop the shotgun. After two warnings, Comer fired four rounds, killing Wheeler. The postal employee was not injured.

For his action, Comer was presented the Robert Forsyth Valor Award by then-U.S. attorney general Edwin Meese in Washington. The award is the U.S. marshal's equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The award is presented to an employee who has "demonstrated unusual courage, good judgment, and competence in hostile circumstances, and will have performed an act or service which saved the life of another person while endangering his, her, own life."

Comer has worked for the marshal's service for about 20 years.