MARSHAL WILL BE FEATURED AS `TOP COP'

For the second time this year, the CBS television show "Top Cops" has decided to recreate the heroics of a law enforcement officer from Cape Girardeau.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Clarence Comer will step into the spotlight as the subject of a segment that will probably air next season, representatives of the show's production company said Wednesday.

Comer works as a deputy U.S. marshal in Cape Girardeau. He fatally shot Jeffrey M. Wheeler, 32, in January 1987 after Wheeler, armed with a 20-gauge shotgun, hijacked a U.S. Mail jeep in Scott City and forced the mail carrier to drive to a Cape Girardeau pharmacy.

Comer fired four rounds from a police issue 12-gauge shotgun after Wheeler failed to drop his weapon, which was unloaded.

The shooting occurred as Comer and Scott City Police Chief David Beck, who was then a lieutenant in the police force, tried to apprehend Wheeler.

The shooting occurred near Doctors' Park after Comer blocked the roadway with an unmarked federal marshal's car. The postman was able to jump out of the postal truck only moments before it crashed into the marshal's car.

"Clarence did a very heroic and courageous thing because he was protecting other people's lives, he was protecting another officer, and he was in the direct line of fire," said the television reporter handling the story, Jamie Saul of Grosso-Jacobson Productions in New York City. "It was a very visual story."

"Top Cops'" fall premiere this year included the story of Timothy J. Ruopp, formerly of Cape Girardeau. Ruopp, 31, a San Diego police officer who previously worked as a Cape Girardeau County deputy sheriff, died in September 1984, two days after being shot in a shootout with Joselito "Gerry" Cinco in San Diego's Balboa Park. Ruopp's partner, police officer Kimberly Tonahill, 24, died instantly.

On Wednesday afternoon, Comer refrained from commenting on the planned television segment, saying he first needed to talk with Willie Greason, the U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis.

The production company's director of operations, Amy Weinberg, said Wednesday she received word Oct. 23 that the Comer segment had received approval. But Weinberg said it wasn't known if or when the segment would air.

"It's a very good chance that it will be aired because they very rarely shoot something that they don't air, because that wastes money."

Saul said the segment would probably air next season. About a six-month time frame usually exists between the time a show is proposed and when it airs, he said.

The segment will be filmed in Toronto, Canada, where all the "Top Cops" shows are produced, said Weinberg. Comer will be flown in to act as technical adviser and the segment's on-camera narrator, she said.

Saul said, "We will recreate Cape Girardeau in Toronto, somehow."

He said he learned of the Comer story from the U.S. Marshal Service's public affairs director in Washington. He had come to know the director, he said, after going out with New York deputy marshals on warrant raids in April. Comer has worked for the marshal's service for about 19 years, ever since he got out of the Marines, said Saul.

Any story idea for "Top Cops" must first clear an intense critique session by reporters and the managing editor in New York before it even goes to the producers in Toronto, said Saul.

"I would say out of every 20 stories proposed, maybe eight or 10 go up. For Clarence's story to have made it," he said, "it was heavily scrutinized."

In Toronto, Saul said, the story is again scrutinized by the production company's executive producer and owner, Sonny Grosso. Grosso is the former New York City detective who broke the French Connection heroin case, he said.

"He knows cops. So it's got to pass his eye. He can smell a rat far away," Saul said.

This is the second season for "Top Cops," said Weinberg. During its first season, she said, the show aired 35 original episodes.

The show airs on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time.