A veteran physician and healthcare technology executive went on a shooting rampage inside his apartment building during a bitter legal dispute over water damage to his $1 million home.
Dr. Matt Lambert, 55, shot and killed building manager James Stuart, 46, inside the tower’s gym in Washington, DC, wounded four other people and then took his own life.
A close relative of Lambert declined to comment when Our News Outlet contacted the family about the shooting.
Lambert had been engaged in a long-running dispute with the Metropole Condominium Association, which operates the luxury residential building on 15th Street near Logan Circle.
In a lawsuit and through detailed posts on his Twitter account, he alleged that Metropole and its building contractors, EJF Real Estate Services, had caused $290,000 in water damage and mold during facade renovations.
The disgruntled doctor barricaded himself inside his seventh-floor, one-bedroom apartment, built in 2008 and valued at just over $1 million, before killing himself.
Lambert’s final post, published at 8.06am while he was believed to be inside the apartment, read: ‘My manifesto is an engineering report.’
He attached a screenshot from a CED Technologies report that appeared to support his allegations, along with what seemed to be a log of reported problems in the building.
Dr Matt Lambert, 55, shot building manager James Stuart inside the gym of the Washington, DC, complex, wounded four others and then turned the gun on himself
A Washington, DC, gunman died by suicide after an hour-long standoff with police. He barricaded himself inside an apartment after killing a man at a nearby gym and injuring four others
In another disturbing post, Lambert appeared to predict the attack on April 28 while responding to a resident’s complaint about a lack of hot water.
‘If you’re looking for the building manager, I would check the gym,’ he wrote.
In a post the day before the shooting, Lambert claimed the dispute had left him without a ‘shower, dryer, HVAC, and cooking’ for six months.
Officials had previously said the suspect was involved in a dispute with his homeowners association.
‘We do know there was a conflict between him and the homeowners association of that building, but at this point we’re continuing to look into that,’ Metropolitan Police Chief Jeffery Carroll said at a news conference.
Stuart was shot in the back inside VIDA Fitness, which operates within the apartment complex, and died at the scene. Lambert then withdrew to his apartment upstairs.
Inside the unit, he activated the sprinkler system, started a fire and spoke by phone with a neighbor, another property manager and police negotiators about his dispute with the building.
He also fired from his balcony at four people on the ground, wounding them, before eventually turning the weapon on himself.
Police said at least one injured person was in critical condition, while three others suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
When officers approached the apartment, Lambert fired twice through the door. No officers were struck.
The inside of Lambert’s apartment in November 2024, after he moved out and the walls and floors were removed to investigate water damage and mold
Lambert posted this November 2024 photograph showing walls being dismantled inside his apartment
Negotiators spent about an hour speaking with him by phone in an effort to persuade him to surrender.
‘While our negotiators were communicating with the suspect, they did hear a single gunshot. At which time, the suspect stopped talking to the officers,’ Carroll said.
After officers were finally able to enter the unit, they found Lambert suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A search of the apartment uncovered three weapons: a pistol, a shotgun and a rifle. Police said none was registered to Lambert.
Investigators said the pistol was used to shoot Stuart, the rifle was used against the four wounded people and the shotgun was fired through the door at police.
In March, Lambert was appointed chief medical officer and head of product strategy at Advantmed, a healthcare information management and risk-adjustment company.
His role was focused on the company’s in-home assessment program.
‘In-home assessments provide a meaningful opportunity to engage members while strengthening risk and quality performance,’ Lambert said when he joined the company.
Lambert earned his medical degree from Marshall University and trained in emergency medicine before holding a series of chief medical officer positions in the private sector.
He also served as chief medical information officer for New York City Health and Hospitals.
Lambert’s final post said: ‘My manifesto is an engineering report.’ He attached part of a CED Technologies report that appeared to support his allegations
He also included what appeared to be a record of problems reported at the building
Lambert began publicly documenting his dispute with Metropole in October 2025, uploading hundreds of photographs, documents and complaints.
His grievances extended beyond the alleged water damage inside his apartment to other problems involving the building and its management.
In a lawsuit filed in March 2025, Lambert alleged that ‘suspected water intrusion, mold, significant moisture accumulation, and/or related damage’ resulted directly from facade work that Metropole began in March 2023.
He said that before the work started, his apartment had experienced ‘no significant water intrusion, mold, moldy smells, moisture accumulation, or related damage’.
Metropole and EJF Real Estate Services denied responsibility, arguing that the damage was caused by third parties outside their control and that Lambert should have taken greater steps to prevent it.
As a condominium owner, Lambert paid Metropole $15,357 toward the facade project, according to the lawsuit. He said he began noticing damage in March 2024.
He reported the first instance of ‘water intrusion’ after Metropole had ‘actively solicited’ reports from residents when the work began.
The lawsuit said Metropole did not cut an opening in Lambert’s drywall to determine whether water was trapped behind the wall until August 2024.
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By the following month, the electric blind beneath the opening had stopped working, and foul-smelling mold had begun to grow in the area.
Lambert alleged that Metropole denied the presence of mold and attempted to close the opening while disregarding his complaints.
In a disturbing April 28 post responding to a resident’s complaint about broken hot water, Lambert wrote: ‘If you’re looking for the building manager, I would check the gym.’
Lambert described the condition of his apartment earlier this year as ‘unliveable’
Lambert said two independent inspections ‘confirmed that substantial moisture continues to accumulate in key areas of the unit, including the cement ceiling, soffit, baseboards, windowsills, and exterior walls’.
He formally asked Metropole to address the damage in line with the assessors’ recommendations and reimburse him for the costs he had incurred.
According to the lawsuit, Metropole did not fulfill those requests despite receiving extensive photographic evidence.
‘[Metropole’s] work caused a moisture saturated ceiling, mold-covered external walls, and moisture-saturated floorboards under the windows, corrosion of metal surfaces under the drywall,’ the lawsuit claimed.
Metropole wrote to Lambert on October 21, 2024, saying it would work with him to resolve the problems. He alleged that no meaningful action followed.
By November 11, he had hired a contractor to remove the ‘moisture saturated’ walls and rotted flooring.
He said the work exposed additional black mold and leaking pipes that were worsening the damage.
Lambert posted this photograph on Twitter while criticizing the slow pace of the facade project
Another image of the facade work posted earlier this year. Lambert alleged that the construction caused the damage inside his apartment
The lawsuit alleged that Metropole repeatedly promised to resolve the problems but had not done so by the time the case was filed.
‘[Lambert’s] unit remains deconstructed torn down to the metal frame which bears signs of the water intrusion and elevated moisture in the unit,’ it stated.
Lambert moved out when the deconstruction began and said he could not return because rebuilding the apartment before the underlying problems were fixed would lead to further mold growth.
The case continued for the next year and a half, while Lambert documented every building problem he could identify and tracked what he described as the slow progress of the facade work.
His posts included photographs of mold, corroded metal, cockroaches and other pests, water running inside walls and notices from management about interruptions to various utilities.
He also alleged that he was being ‘discriminated’ against because similar repairs were being carried out in other units but not in his apartment.
Black mold that Lambert said had accumulated inside his apartment
Lambert posted this photograph of water damage elsewhere in the apartment building
Openings cut into a ceiling in a shared area of the apartment complex
On October 1 of this year, Lambert posted an update about the lawsuit.
‘After months of ‘Luigi’ tactics (delay, deny, defend) by the HOA, we were finally able to submit an independent engineering report into the record,’ he wrote, referring to the Luigi Mangione murder case.
‘The report addresses 704, the facade rehabilitation more broadly, and lists other units affected. When the time is right, I will share the report on X, with other Metropole owners, and with Logan Circle realtors.’
Lambert made the report public only after he shot Stuart and barricaded himself inside the apartment he described as ‘uninhabitable’.
The attack occurred two years and one day after Lambert left his apartment so contractors could remove its walls and floors.
It remained unclear what prompted Lambert to open fire while the lawsuit was still pending, including to his attorney, Joel Braithewaite.
Braithewaite said Lambert ‘was in a good place’ when they spoke roughly a day before the shooting, and that the case had gone well during a deposition the previous week.
Lambert was scheduled to speak in Orlando, Florida, later that week and was due to begin a new job on Monday.
However, Lambert reportedly confessed to the killings when a Metropole colleague of Stuart’s called him after the shooting to ask whether he was safe.
She said Lambert told her he was exhausted by the mold and water damage and believed the only way to make people pay attention was to take drastic action.
A bullet hole in a window of the apartment complex
A man died after being shot inside VIDA Fitness in Logan Circle on Thursday. Police said the suspect was believed to be a member of the gym
Witnesses described seeing the building manager shot and other people wounded, followed by scenes of panic and confusion throughout the complex.
One gym member called the scene inside the fitness center ‘horrific’ and said people could not leave without passing close to the shooter.
She said a man near her was shot as she walked on a treadmill.
Max Smith told NBC Washington that he left his apartment after a fire alarm sounded. Once residents were outside, however, they heard gunfire.
‘Everyone starts sprinting,’ he told the outlet.
Smith said he heard at least three or four shots and that at least 10 people locked themselves inside the bathroom of Call Your Mother deli.
‘I’m very shaken up, you don’t expect it,’ he told the outlet.
