Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 13, 1995                   TAG: 9503130096
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

NAVY SHOOTER SHOWED NO SIGNS

Ernest J. Cooper Jr., 58, shot a superior, Nils F. ``Fred'' Salvesen, 30, Friday after a confrontation at Salvesen's desk, police said. Cooper then shot another supervisor, Navy Cmdr. Harry F. Molyneux, 39, four times with the .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun before committing suicide.

Salvesen, of Annapolis, Md., was hit in the neck and lower back and has lost a kidney, a family member told the Washington Post. Molyneux, of Alexandria, suffered only flesh wounds.

Both were in stable condition Sunday at Washington Hospital Center, a nursing supervisor said.

Investigators said they still don't know what provoked Cooper to begin shooting in the 10th-floor office of the Naval Air Systems Command, which has naval aviation research and development programs.

``There were no signs that led up to it,'' a source familiar with the investigation told the Post. ``There was nothing out of the ordinary with him.''

Cooper, a retired Air Force officer working as a logistics specialist, was scheduled to be reassigned at the facility but had not yet been transferred, the source told the newspaper.

Cooper's neighbors in Waldorf, Md., said he was quiet and enjoyed working on his home computer. Cooper, who they said served in the Air Force for 30 years, becoming a lieutenant colonel, had been stationed at Andrews Air Force Base and went to work in Arlington in 1986.

``I think it was real difficult for him to go from a military environment to a civilian one,'' said an unidentified neighbor who said she is a close friend of the family. ``There just wasn't the same discipline in the workplace.''

Keywords:
FATALITY