The gunman who shot multiple people in Northwest Washington on Thursday appeared to attribute the attack to his long-running frustrations with the management of the condominium complex where he lived, according to remarks he made to a building manager shortly after the shooting began.
Charelle Ferguson, a building manager for the Metropole, said that Matt Lambert answered her phone call around 9 a.m. and said that he was tired of the mold and water damage in his unit, which, he’d told her previously, had rendered it unlivable.
“The only way people will pay attention, you have to do something,” Lambert said, Ferguson recalled in an interview with The Washington Post. He then confessed to her that he had shot five people.
Lambert, 55, was identified as the gunman by a local official and a law enforcement official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. He was also identified by David von Storch, owner of Vida Fitness, who said security video in the facility showed Lambert shooting and killing another member of the gym.
James Stuart, 46, a manager at the condo building, was killed inside the gym during the attack, police said Thursday. Four other people were injured.
Lambert, a board certified emergency room doctor, lived in a penthouse unit several floors above the Vida Fitness gym where police have said the rampage began.
He paid almost $1.1 million for the one bedroom condo in 2016, according to property records. The building is in the affluent Logan Circle neighborhood, nearly a mile north of the White House.
In 2025, Lambert filed a lawsuit against the condo association and property management company alleging that they had failed to address the water damage, mold, and elevated moisture in his unit despite his complaints over several years.
Lambert claimed the mold in his apartment, unit 704, initially appeared around 2024 after work on the building’s exterior allowed water to permeate his walls, according to court records.
In the suit, he claimed he paid for independent testing that revealed the extent of the damage. But when he invited Stuart, the property manager he later killed, into his unit to assess the issue, Stuart dismissed the mold odor by saying it “smelled like cologne,” and told Lambert he would hear from a lawyer, he claimed. Lambert sought damages of at least $300,000.
In court, the condo association and EJF Real Estate Services, the property management company, have denied responsibility for the damage. A lawyer for the condo association did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. Jennifer Oberg, vice president of client care for EJF, said that the company is cooperating with law enforcement and declined to comment further.
In a subsequent complaint filed as part of the same lawsuit, the condominium association claimed that liability “more than likely” lies with Vida and the owners of the commercial unit where it rented space. The condo association argued that Vida and its landlord operated a commercial exhaust system that might have contributed to the mold.
Vida’s owners and its landlords denied those allegations in court records. Von Storch, the president and founder of Vida’s parent company, also denied the allegations in an interview with The Post, saying the exhaust system is “not even close” to the apartment in question. The lawsuit is ongoing.
Lambert complained about the building to Metropole employees and fellow residents as well as in postings on social media.
Ferguson said they had chatted in recent months about his frustrations with the condo.
His unit, she recalled him telling her, was riddled with construction defects, leaving it vulnerable to water damage and mold. She was sympathetic to his concerns, Ferguson said. He’d always been kind to her.
“I never thought he’d do something like this,” she said.
Cole Brennan, 30, said he’d spoken to Lambert a few times since moving into the Metropole four months ago and that Lambert had mentioned that his apartment had suffered water damage.
“All he wanted to talk about was, ’oh, this building is a sh — hole,” Brennan recalled.
An account on X that appears to have belonged to Lambert details his grievances against the building. Dozens of posts on the account called “OfMiceandMold” over the past six months include photos, videos and screenshots of court documents and internal building notices. The posts repeatedly complain about issues including air conditioning problems as well as mold and mice.
“My manifesto is an engineering report,” says a post from 8:06 a.m. Thursday, around the time the shooting began. It includes screenshots of what appears to be a report detailing deficient attempts by building management to make repairs in the unit of a “Dr. Lambert.”
Another recent post includes screenshots of the inside of an apartment in disrepair, with tarp covering the windows and furniture.
“Two years of living in luxury (and the start of 6 months with no shower, dryer, HVAC and cooking),” read the message accompanying the the photos, which was last edited at 4:26 a.m. Wednesday, the day before the shootings.
An April 24 recording includes video of a wall narrated by a man with a voice that two neighbors said belonged to Lambert. “Notice the preponderance of mold closer to the ceiling that grows less as we get to the floor,” the man says in the video.
Lambert, who obtained a medical license in West Virginia, worked as a physician for years before transitioning to work as a medical consultant, according to a longtime friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for his family’s safety.
Lambert, whom friends referred to as “Dr. Matt,” was an expert in medical IT matters, and consulted on projects involving electronic medical records, the person said.
In recent years, the person said, Lambert often appeared agitated about the dispute with his condo association, adding that “he reached the end of his rope.”
Joyce Sohyun Lee, Meg Kelly and Razzan Nakhlawi contributed.
The post D.C. gunman appeared to attribute attack to frustrations with building maintenance appeared first on Washington Post.
