EDWARDS AIRMAN KILLS 2, SHOOTS SELF AT BASE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

An airman who shot another after they left a bar at Edwards Air Force Base, then killed a base police officer who stopped him driving the dead man's truck Saturday morning, later shot and killed himself, officials said.

Police officers chased the gunman to a complex of base dormitories, where he killed himself with a bullet to the head in a recreation room, authorities said.

The victims were Tech. Sgt. Robert B. Butler, a security policeman and a 34-year-old father of three, and Senior Airman Darrick F. Moore, 27, a member of the 412th Logistics Squadron whose wife also is in the Air Force.

``It's a tough thing to take,'' said Col. Ed DeIulio, Edwards' de facto mayor as commander of the 95th Air Base Wing.

Senior Airman Davaughn L. Brown, 23, is suspected of shooting the others and himself, according to a City News Service report attributed to base spokesman George Fox.

The base's security police commander said no one yet knows what sparked the killings. But officials said Moore and the gunman once served in the same unit, and the men were seen leaving together late Friday or early Saturday from the Stripes Lounge, a bar and dance club for enlisted personnel.

Lt. Col. Pete Micale, commander of the 95th Security Forces Squadron, said he did not know if the men argued at the bar.

``They were seen in Stripes talking. We are interviewing witnesses to try to characterize that interaction,'' Micale said.

Moore was originally from Hawaii. He'd been assigned to Edwards about 3-1/2 years, officials said. His wife is also an enlisted person in the Air Force.

Butler, from Philadelphia, had been at Edwards two years. Micale described him as easygoing and soft-spoken, visible in church every Sunday with his wife, daughters ages 5 and 7, and 3-year-old son.

``He was a really good police officer,'' Micale said.

In an interview with The Associated Press from Philadelphia, Butler's father, Joseph Butler, said his son was a regular churchgoer.

``From what I was told so far, my son had made a stop for a DUI (drunk driving) investigation at two in the morning, and this guy shot him in the face and killed him.''

Butler, who had a black belt in karate, originally entered the Air Force to learn about computers but was assigned to security work instead.

The father recalled his son telephoning him and saying: ``Dad, guess what? I'm a policeman.''

The deaths came 16 months after the first killing anyone can remember in Edwards' 55-year history.

The base's last slaying - the only other one anyone at Edwards can remember - occurred in September 1996 in front of Club Muroc, another base bar.

Nightclub manager James Elling was killed while transferring more than $1,000 from Stripes to a safe in Club Muroc at closing time.

Officials said the suspect in that killing was Johnny Eugene Wyss, an Edwards security police officer who left the Air Force the week of Elling's death. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound three months later in the desert in Yuma County, Ariz., where his father lives.

Base officials said they are still trying to sort out Saturday's killings, but they believe Moore was shot and dumped at the base landfill after leaving Stripes - probably after midnight - with the other airman. The other airman then drove off in Moore's GMC pickup.

Shortly before 2 a.m., Butler radioed his office that he was stopping a motorist driving erratically. He asked for back-up, which is standard policy when stopping a suspected drunk driver, Micale said.

``It appears he approached the (truck), made contact with the motorist and talked to him, and was shot,'' Micale said.

Butler never drew his pistol, Micale said. He was shot once.

Two security police officers who arrived within three minutes of Butler's call for backup saw a pickup truck speeding away. One chased it until the truck skidded to a stop in front of the base headquarters and the driver ran into a complex of dormitories.

Security police sealed off the area and began clearing dorm rooms one by one. About 6:45 a.m., they found the gunman's body in a third-floor recreation room of the dormitory building where he lived, a 9 mm Glock pistol nearby.

Dorm residents are required to turn their personal firearms over to the security police for safekeeping, but this one was not registered, officials said.

About 8:30 a.m., two people driving past the base dump, which lays northwest of Edwards' housing area, spotted Moore's body.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color in AV edition) Security personnel at Edwards Air Force Base surround a pickup truck belonging to a man killed Saturday and driven by the killer, an airman.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News

(2 -- color in AV edition) Robert B. Butler

Father of three slain