A gunman killed one person and wounded four others Thursday during his rampage through the District’s Logan Circle neighborhood, before the assailant took his own life while barricading himself in his apartment.
Metropolitan Police identified the suspect as Dr. Matt Lambert, who sparked the carnage by gunning down one person inside a nearby gym and then firing at people working construction in the 1500 block of 15th Street Northwest around 8 a.m.
He then retreated into his building, which is part of the same structure where the gym is located, and holed up in his penthouse until fatally shooting himself.
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D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said one of the surviving shooting victims is in critical condition, and the other three suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
“We’re devastated,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a press conference. “Someone was killed in our city this morning — a senseless act of gun violence.”
The standoff saw SWAT officers responding in force to a part of town known for its trendy restaurants and buzzy nightlife as police snipers mounted their weaponry on apartment balconies lining the streets.
Federal agents from the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service, as well as the National Guard, helped cordon off a three-block radius as authorities tried to negotiate with the suspect.
During the barricade, Metropolitan Police Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll said the assailant shot through his door at SWAT officers preparing to breach his seventh floor unit. Investigators were speaking with the shooter when he turned the gun on himself, the chief said.
Officers found the man inside with a gunshot wound and said the suspect had been “contained” shortly before 10:30 a.m. Federal law enforcement sources said the shooter was “dead on arrival” once officers gained entry to the penthouse.
Chief Carroll said he does not know the relationship between the gunman and the victims at this time.
Gym-goers who witnessed the shooting described the mayhem when the shots first rang out.
“Within seconds there was a man who fell to the ground, and a pool of blood came out,” James Spellman told the Associated Press. “One gym member rushed to help him. He was instantly dead. He had been shot in the neck.”
Chief Carroll said the shooting stemmed from a dispute with the suspect’s property management company. He was asked at the press conference about a possible manifesto circulating that was thought to be tied to the gunman, but he said it was still being looked into.
An X account with the username OfMiceandMold posted just after 8 a.m. saying “My manifesto is an engineering report.”
The post included photos of the report in which a “Dr. Lambert” documented botched renovations to the building that brought water damage and high humidity levels in the apartment. The account had been active for over a year.
In the months before the shooting, the account also posted several photos of visible mold in the unit and water damage in the hallways.
The social media user further catalogued an ongoing legal dispute with the property management company about shoddy conditions at an apartment building on the same block where the deadly shooting erupted.
Pictures of civil court documents on the account listed “Matt Lambert, M.D.” as a plaintiff. The filing itself said the doctor spent over $100,000 trying to mitigate the mold problems in his apartment.
A separate website for Dr. Matt Lambert said he is the founder and CEO of MLEM, a healthcare and technology consultancy company.
“He is a recognized leader in healthcare delivery, technology, policy, and payment, with a deep commitment to leveraging innovation to improve healthcare outcomes,” the site reads.
A biography for Dr. Lambert said he is a board-certified emergency physician with over two decades of clinical experience. The site also says he splits his time between West Virginia and Logan Circle in the District.
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