THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503130060
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ARLINGTON LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
A civilian Navy employee who shot two co-workers before killing himself gave little indication that he was upset with his job, investigators said.
Ernest J. Cooper Jr., 58, shot a superior, Nils F. ``Fred'' Salvesen, 30, Friday after a confrontation at Salveson's desk, police said. Cooper then shot another supervisor, Navy Cmdr. Harry F. Molyneux, 39, four times with the
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.''
Employees are not allowed to take guns into the building, where 3,000 military and civilian employees work. Investigators do not know whether Cooper took the gun to work on Friday or kept it in his office, a Navy spokesman said.
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. They said he served in the Air Force for 30 years, becoming a lieutenant colonel, and had been stationed at Andrews Air Force Base before going 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: SHOOTINGS SUICIDE by CNB