2 Victims Shot With No Warning : Violence: Former General Dynamics worker fired at two managers from behind as they were leaving an office after grievance meeting was canceled, a relative says.

A fired worker who gunned down two managers in a missile plant’s courtyard gave no warning as he slipped into close range and shot them both in the back of the head, killing one, the survivor’s brother said Saturday.

Robert Earl Mack, 42, then walked into an office and telephoned his mother, threatening to kill himself. Outside, workers scrambled for cover as police cars and ambulances gathered at the General Dynamics plant.

Mack, who surrendered to police at the plant about 20 minutes after Friday’s 2:30 p.m. shooting, was being held without bail at a downtown jail Saturday.

An assembler of advanced cruise missiles in the company’s Convair Division, Mack was a 24-year employee of General Dynamics. He was fired Jan. 15 for missing work, a company spokesman said.

Mack’s former supervisor, James English, 52, was in serious condition at a hospital Saturday after 3 1/2 hours of surgery to remove a bullet from his brain.

He should recover and be released in about 10 days, but he probably will suffer permanent vision damage, said Dr. Philip Shields, chief resident neurosurgeon at the UC San Diego Medical Center.

English was struck in the right rear of his skull, damaging the visual cortex, Shields said. If the bullet had hit 2 millimeters to the left, he would have died, the doctor said.

The other victim, Michael M. Konz, 25, died at the hospital an hour after the shooting. He had been a General Dynamics labor representative for 3 1/2 years.

Mack was scheduled to meet the two men and a union representative Friday afternoon at the Convair employment office for a grievance hearing to appeal his dismissal.

The hearing was postponed, however, said Jerry English, the supervisor’s brother.

James English had just been told that the meeting was off and was leaving the employment office when Mack shot him, his brother said.

“He was actually walking out of the building, so he was unaware that a person had walked up behind him and literally shot him at point-blank range,” said Jerry English, 46, of Honolulu.

Company officials described the scene to the family, he said. General Dynamics spokeswoman Julie Andrews said she could not confirm that the hearing was canceled or give details of the shooting.

As the two men lay bleeding on the ground, Mack called his mother and told her for the first time that he had lost the job he held since dropping out of high school in 1968. He was devastated, she said.

“Robert said: ‘Mama, I’m out of here. I’m going to kill myself,’ ” Helen Mack said in an interview published in the San Diego Tribune on Saturday.

“He said: ‘I might as well take my life, they’ve taken my life from me,’ ” she said.

Mack pleaded with her son, “Don’t do it.” At one point, she could hear the police outside trying to draw him out, she said.

He surrendered unarmed. Police said a .38-caliber revolver was found inside the building.

James English was conscious and speaking in short sentences Saturday, his brother said. He told family, “My head hurts,” but probably didn’t realize he had been shot.

A father of two and brother of 11 siblings, James English was quickly surrounded by family and friends who feared he would die, his brother said.

“This morning when we first saw Jim, he had tubes everywhere and I just shook him and asked him ‘Can you hear me? Are you OK?’ and I got one of these,” Jerry English said, flashing a thumbs-up sign, “and that was very emotional for us.”

The parents of Konz, a part-time law student from Phoenix, said they were in shock over his sudden death.

“It’s a very hard thing to accept,” said his father, Robert Konz of Phoenix.