Sixth victim confirmed in Washington, US apartment-related shooting, police say | Conflict News

Police confirm sixth victim in Washington apartment shooting; suspect dead after barricading himself and starting a fire.

Police said a sixth person was shot Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., bringing the toll to one person killed and five injured in an attack they said was related to a dispute over maintenance issues at a condominium building.

In an updated statement, the Metropolitan Police said investigators found a sixth victim, a woman, after officers initially located five other victims.

She was conscious and breathing with a “non-life-threatening gunshot wound.”

“The victim treated his wound himself,” police said.

Two women and two men were taken to hospital, all conscious and breathing.

James Stuart, 46, manager of the building where the suspect lived, died at the scene.

Police believe the suspect, a 55-year-old doctor named Matt Wade Lambert, targeted Stuart while Stuart was doing his morning workout at the gym.

The shooting began shortly before 8 a.m. local time (1 p.m. GMT) at a VIDA Fitness gym in the Logan Circle neighborhood, about 1 mile north of the White House.

Police said Lambert shot Stuart inside the building’s ground-floor gymnasium before returning to his seventh-floor apartment and shooting people below from his patio.

Five others, some of whom worked at a construction site across the street. Police have not detailed the circumstances in which the sixth victim was shot.

The shooting happened in less than five minutes, according to Acting Police Chief Jeffery Carroll.

Lambert then barricaded himself in his apartment, where he spoke on the phone to police negotiators. Police say he fired at least twice through the door while officers were outside, but no officers were injured.

He also broke the gas line connected to his fireplace and started a fire that the building’s sprinkler system contained.

Police said Lambert spent most of the conversation with negotiators talking about the dispute with building management.

“Most of the conversation has been about homeowners associations and the challenges that come with that,” Carroll said.

“While our negotiators were communicating with the suspect, they heard a single gunshot,” he said, adding that Lambert then stopped speaking.

When tactical officers forced entry into the apartment, they found him dead from an apparent gunshot wound.

Police said inside the apartment they found a shotgun, a rifle and a handgun, all of which were used in the shooting.

According to court records cited by the Associated Press, Lambert had filed a lawsuit alleging he had been unable to enjoy his penthouse since 2024 because of mold, humidity and water problems that began after work to the building’s exterior.

The lawsuit was ongoing, and Lambert appeared to have shared details of the dispute, including photos and an engineering report on an X account called ofMiceandMold.

Her attorney, Joel Braithwaite, told reporters Thursday that the apartment where Lambert has lived since 2017 resembles “a war zone” and that Lambert spent more than $300,000 on the lawsuit.