One of the victims in Thursday morning’s shooting rampage in Logan Circle suffered “serious and severe” wounds while she was walking her daughter’s dog, according to a family friend.
Susan Hamerski, of Minnesota, is in stable condition but unable to speak, according to Tina Wilcox, who spoke on behalf of the Hamerski family.
“She’s past the life-threatening part of it,” Wilcox told The Washington Post on Friday evening.
Hamerski’s loved ones asked her to write down on a pad of paper what she wanted to share with the world. She jotted “Gun control is public health,” Wilcox said.
Wilcox said the Hamerski family is requesting privacy. She said she isn’t aware of a recovery timeline for her friend.
Hamerski was one of five people hit by gunfire after Matt Wade Lambert, 55, fatally shot a manager at his condo building in the Vida Fitness gym then began shooting from his penthouse balcony, according to police.
The manager, 46-year-old James Stuart, had become the subject of Lambert’s ire from his frustrations with the state of his seventh-story condo, police said on Thursday.
After using a handgun to kill Stuart, Lambert exited the gym and made his way back to his condo, where, perched atop his balcony, he set the sights of a rifle upon his other victims, police said.
None of those hit by rifle fire lived in the building. Among them were two construction workers on a nearby crew.
Lambert then barricaded himself inside the condo, eventually setting fire to it and shooting through the door before taking his own life with one of his three firearms, according to police.
One woman who works at Vida was outside the gym on Friday, speaking with and consoling a fellow trainer. She told him her jacket was grazed by a bullet during the shooting. She declined to be interviewed.
After paying a tribute to the victims at the makeshift memorial in front of the Vida Fitness, Craig Davenport, a trainer there, sat silently for a few moments with tears in his eyes.
He told reporters on Friday he had come to retrieve his car. He said he had been working at the gym for 18 years.
“I love Vida, I love the members, I love the employees,” he said. “The employees are a family.”
Davenport said he was in a break room when Stuart was shot. When people working out realized it wasn’t a dropped weight, he said he and three other co-workers ran into a closet and stayed there for an hour, speaking with 911 dispatchers who told them to stay put.
“This is and has been a safe space for us,” he said. “We come here, we bring people joy. They come in, they work out, they relieve stress.”
For someone to be killed in that environment, Davenport said, is “unfathomable.”
Stuart, who went by Jimmy, was remembered by friends and family members in online tributes on Friday.
An online fundraiser to cover the cost of Stuart’s memorial service said that his death has “sent shock waves through everyone who knew him and left his loved ones facing a loss that words cannot adequately express.”
“No family should ever have to experience the sudden loss of someone they love in such a devastating way,” the website said.
Stuart spent 13 years working for EJF Real Estate. A statement from the company said he was a “respected and beloved … part of the fabric of this company.”
Peter Morris, a 61-year-old resident of the Metropole, said Stuart always greeted residents with a smile. When residents had questions, Stuart had answers, Morris said.
“The person who would be taking care of this situation the most is gone. He would be front and center handling this, and he’s the one who’s gone,” Morris said.
Liam Scott and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
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