Sixth victim confirmed in DC condo-related shooting in US, police say

Police have said a sixth person was shot on Thursday morning in Washington, DC, bringing the toll to one person killed and five wounded in an attack they believe was linked to a dispute over maintenance issues in a condo building.

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

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

“The victim self-treated the wound,” police said.

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

James Stuart, the 46-year-old manager of the building in which 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 started just before 8am local time (13:00 GMT) at a VIDA Fitness gym in the city’s Logan Circle neighbourhood, about a mile north of the White House.

Police said Lambert shot Stuart inside the gym on the ground floor of the building before going back to his apartment on the seventh floor and firing on people below from his patio.

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

The shootings unfolded in less than five minutes, according to interim police chief Jeffery Carroll.

Lambert then barricaded himself inside his apartment, where he talked to police negotiators over the phone. 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, which 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 was about the homeowners associations and challenges with that,” said Carroll.

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

When tactical officers forced their way into the apartment, they found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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

According to court records cited by The Associated Press, Lambert had filed a lawsuit alleging that he had not been able to enjoy his penthouse since 2024 because of mould, moisture and water problems that began after work had been done on 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.

His lawyer, Joel Braithwaite, told reporters on Thursday that the condo where Lambert had lived since 2017 looked like “a warzone” and that Lambert had spent more than $300,000 on the lawsuit.