BY CHRISTINE BYERS • cbyers@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8087 | Posted: Friday, November 18, 2011 12:05 am

ST. LOUIS • Bart Perry became emotional as he watched Deputy U.S. Marshal Theodore Abegg pose for pictures Thursday after the Crusade Against Crime's 42nd annual Medal of Valor Awards ceremony.

"If anyone deserves this award, it's him," said Perry, whose younger brother, Deputy Marshal John Perry, was posthumously honored. John Perry was killed, and Abegg and St. Louis Officer William Heibling wounded, in a gunfight March 8 while making an arrest on Osage Street.

Bart Perry said he will never forget TV video of his brother being carried out, with Abegg right behind. "He epitomizes one of the bravest acts," Bart Perry said. "To see him limping along behind my brother like that, it just chokes me up every time I see it."

The three lawmen were among 16 honored at the Ballpark Hilton Hotel for courage:

• O'Fallon, Mo., Sgt. Steve Landness, who saved a woman from drowning in Florissant on Oct. 23, 2010.

• Normandy Officer Brett Bowling, who rescued a man from a burning house there on Dec. 5, 2010.

• St. Louis Officers Phillip Anderson, James Frost, Brent Fincher and Tiffany Burns, who were fired upon six times April 7 in pursuit of bank robbery suspects.

• St. Louis Officer Marco Christlieb, who killed a man who raised a gun at officers who interrupted a holdup near 15th and Chestnut streets on April 4.

• St. Louis Officers Luke Kallal and Lucas Roethlisberger, wounded during a traffic stop Oct. 13 in the 4800 block of Enright Avenue. Kallal wounded the suspect.

• St. Louis Officer Daryl Hall, fatally shot April 29 in a confrontation in the 700 block of South Fourth Street with an armed man who also died.

• St. Louis County Officers James Borzillo and Robert Kircher, who escaped injury in a gunfight with a man along Cavalier Court on Sept. 18, 2010. Kircher killed the gunman.

• St. Louis County Officer Dave Porter, who helped his dog, Otto, and two car tampering suspects after they fell from an embankment into the Meramec River on May 9, 2010.