A doctor locked in a long legal fight over mold in his luxury condo shot and killed the manager of his building inside a busy gym in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Washington on Thursday morning, police said. He then fired down on people in the street from his seventh-floor balcony and wounded four more before taking his own life while police negotiators talked with him by phone.

The man killed was James Stuart, 46, who managed the Metropole, a seven-story condominium at 15th and P streets Northwest that sits above a VIDA Fitness gym. Police identified the gunman as Dr. Matt Lambert, 55, an emergency physician who owned a penthouse unit in the building.

Of the four people wounded, one remained in critical condition Thursday night. The other three had injuries that were not considered life-threatening. Two of the victims were men and two were women. Three of them belonged to a construction crew working across the street when bullets began coming down from above. The fourth was hit near the lobby or in the alley beside the gym.

Minutes of chaos a mile from the White House

The first shot rang out just after 8 a.m. Gym members said the crack sounded like an exercise ball bursting until they saw a man slump over. A fire alarm blared and people ran for the doors. Some ducked into a bagel shop down the block to hide. Investigators believe the gunman walked into the gym looking for one person and left everyone else alone.

He then went back up to his apartment and barricaded himself inside. Twice he fired through the door toward officers in the hallway, according to interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll. Negotiators kept him on the phone for more than an hour. Then they heard a single shot and he stopped answering. Officers forced their way in and found him dead. Three guns were recovered from the unit.

The block is about a mile north of the White House. Police sent an emergency alert to phones, ordered people on the 1500 block of 15th Street to shelter in place and kept nearby schools on lockdown for part of the morning. Those orders were later lifted. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the White House had been briefed.

A feud over mold and water damage

Carroll said investigators believe the attack grew out of a long dispute between Lambert and the homeowners association of the building. Lambert sued the association and its property management company in March 2025. He claimed repair work on the outside walls let water seep into his corner penthouse and left black mold behind the drywall. He said he had not been able to live there since November 2024 and put his losses at more than $300,000.

The case was still open with mediation planned for next spring. Lambert's lawyer, Joel Braithwaite, said Stuart was a central witness in the suit. Braithwaite told reporters he had spoken with his client on Tuesday and found him in good spirits about a new job set to begin Monday. He said he knew Lambert as a healer and never heard him mention owning a gun.

A social media account tied to Lambert had posted photos of the damage for months. One post in October compared the way the board handled his complaints to the delay, deny, defend phrase linked to the 2024 killing of a health insurance executive in New York.

By Thursday evening neighbors had left flowers, candles and handwritten notes outside the gym in memory of Stuart. One card read simply that he deserved better.