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Dr. Matt Lambert, 55, shot dead building manager James Stuart, 46, inside a Vida Fitness gym in Washington's Logan Circle neighborhood on Thursday morning, according to police accounts reported by the Associated Press. Lambert wounded four other people, including a woman who was shot in the head, before he died by suicide.
By 8:23 a.m., the Metropolitan Police Department said it was responding to 15th and P Streets, about a mile north of the White House. One witness told the AP that about 50 people were inside the gym when he heard two shots. He then heard five or six more shots outside near 15th Street as members fled.
Police say Lambert then barricaded himself inside his seventh-floor penthouse in the 1500 block of 15th Street NW, on the same block as the gym. He fired at officers before he died. Nearby schools went into lockdown, and residents were told to shelter in place. The FBI, the Secret Service and the ATF supported local police at the scene, according to Al Jazeera and CBS News.
Lambert was a licensed emergency medicine doctor who had recently worked as a healthcare consultant. Court records show he sued over the condition of his unit last year. He said mold, moisture and water problems had kept him out of the penthouse since 2024, after a contractor worked on the building's exterior.
The suit alleged negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and nuisance. Lambert claimed losses of more than $100,000 and asked for a jury trial. Mediation had been scheduled for March.
"There has been an ongoing dispute between the suspect in this case and the building," said D.C. Interim Chief of Police Jeffery Carroll.
Lambert had documented the dispute on an X account called "OfMiceandMold," sharing photos and an engineering report. The account's last post went up at 8 a.m., minutes before the shooting. Fox News reported that the post read "My manifesto is an engineering report." In early October, the same account referred to "months of 'Luigi' tactics" in posts about his homeowners association.
Photos on the account show the dispute was with the Metropole Condominium Association. Lambert bought the penthouse for $1.095 million in 2016 and tried to sell it in 2021.
The shooting happened in a city where the administration has deployed National Guard troops as part of its focus on crime, according to Al Jazeera. The investigation is ongoing.
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