DC Gym Shooter Kills His Building Manager After HOA Dispute Over Mold Issues

A Washington, DC, doctor who had been locked in a legal battle with his homeowners association over mold problems fatally shot the manager of his condominium during a shooting spree on Thursday, police said. 

The fatal shooting incident was reported around 8 a.m. in the Logan Circle neighborhood in Northwest DC, about a mile from the White House, drawing dozens of heavily armed police officers to the area. 

Matt Wade Lambert, a physician living in a penthouse apartment at the Metropole Condos building on 15th Street Northwest, was publicly identified by the authorities as the shooter who killed one and injured four others before taking his own life.

Lambert was suspected of going down to the luxury VIDA Fitness center housed inside the building, locating the building manager next to the treadmills and shooting him from a point-blank range, DC Councilmember Brooke Pinto told reporters, according to WUSA9.

"Within seconds there was a man who fell to the ground, and a pool of blood came out," gymgoer James Spellman told The Associated Press. "One gym member rushed to help him. He was instantly dead. He had been shot in the neck."

An armed police officer is seen at the scene of a deadly shooting at Logan Circle in Washington, DC.

Dozens of people were in the middle of their morning workout in the gym at the time of the deadly attack, which triggered an evacuation and an order to shelter in place in the area.

While law enforcement officials have not revealed an official motive for the shooting, Pinto said that the building manager was "targeted" by the suspect. 

Lambert then ran out of the gym and shot four other people in the vicinity, among them three construction workers who were across the street.

Interim DC Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said one of the victims was hospitalized in critical condition and three others sustained non-life-threatening injuries. 

The gunman turned the gun on himself inside his penthouse unit while on the phone with police negotiators during the shooting incident in Washington, DC, on Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Lambert eventually barricaded himself inside his condo at Metropole Circle and was on the phone with police negotiators when he turned the gun on himself, committing suicide.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser described the incident as a "senseless act of gun violence."

Legal feud over mold

Court records reviewed by Realtor.com® indicate that Lambert had been in a long-standing feud with his condo’s management and filed a lawsuit in March 2025. In it he claimed that he had not been able to live in his seventh-floor penthouse since Nov. 11, 2024, because of mold, moisture, foul odor, and related damage.

Lambert argued in the 12-page complaint that the problems in his unit were caused by repairs to the building’s facade that had been performed by a contractor, for which he paid over $15,000 as part of a special assessment.

The suspect, Dr. Matt Lambert, sued the homeowners association at Metropole Condo last year over mold and moisture problems. (Google Earth)

According to the filing, Lambert had incurred damages topping $100,000 as a result of the HOA's "failure to take corrective action to remedy the moisture accumulation."

A mediation in the case had been scheduled for March 2027.