Doctor Kills Building Manager in DC Gym Shooting, Then Takes His Own Life

A Thursday morning workout at a busy Washington gym ended in gunfire, a barricaded standoff, and a neighborhood locked down for hours — and police say it all traced back to a long-running fight over mold in a luxury condo.

The shooting happened just before 8 a.m. on November 12 inside VIDA Fitness in Logan Circle, about a mile north of the White House. Metropolitan Police Department Interim Chief Jeffery W. Carroll said the first calls came in from the 1500 block of 15th Street Northwest, near P Street.

Police identified the man killed as James Stuart, 46, the manager of the Metropole condominium building that houses the gym. Officers found him inside the fitness center and pronounced him dead at the scene. Police say Stuart appeared to have been deliberately targeted.

The man police identified as the shooter was 55-year-old Matt Wade Lambert, a board-certified emergency physician who lived in a seventh-floor penthouse in the same building. According to police, Lambert shot Stuart with a handgun inside the gym, then went back up to his apartment and opened fire from his balcony at people below.

Four more people were wounded in that second burst of gunfire — two men and two women. One of them remained in critical condition in a hospital on Friday, police said. The other three had injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening.

What followed was a standoff that kept Logan Circle at a standstill for much of the morning. SWAT teams and dozens of officers flooded the area, guns drawn on rooftops and at street level, while residents were told to shelter in place. Police said Lambert spoke by phone with negotiators while barricaded inside his apartment, fired through the door at officers at least twice, broke a gas line, and started a fire.

Officers eventually entered the apartment and found Lambert dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. Investigators recovered three firearms from the apartment — a handgun, a rifle, and a shotgun — and police said all three had been used during the attack. None of the guns was registered to Lambert in the District of Columbia, according to police.

Investigators are still working to establish a motive, but police and court records point to a bitter dispute between Lambert and the building's condominium association. Lambert had sued the Metropole Condominium Association in March 2025 over what he described as intrusive water, mold, and moisture damage in his unit, which he said repair work on the building's facade had caused. He said the conditions had made his penthouse unlivable. Police described the litigation as long-running and rancorous.

That history has left neighbors and the building's staff trying to make sense of how a dispute over repairs ended in a killing. A vigil was held in the neighborhood on Thursday night for Stuart, and VIDA Fitness told members it has closed its Logan Circle location until further notice.

The shooting also raised fresh questions about how a man in an ongoing legal fight with his own building's management ended up armed with three unregistered guns. Police have not said where Lambert obtained the weapons. The Metropolitan Police Department asked anyone with information to call (202) 727-9099 or text a tip to 50411.

For now, the block around 15th and P streets is quiet again, but the investigation is not over. Police said the case remains open.