Gunman dead after shooting five people, killing one, at Washington, DC gym

A gunman shot five people, killing one, during the Thursday morning rush hour in Logan Circle, a busy neighbourhood in the centre of Washington, DC, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound following a standoff with police, authorities said.

Police said the attacker entered a gym at about 8am local time (13:00 GMT) in Logan Circle, a trendy district near foreign embassies and fashionable restaurants, roughly 1.6km (one mile) north of the White House. James Spellman, who witnessed the attack, said about 50 people were inside the gym at the time. "Within seconds, there was a man who fell to the ground, and a pool of blood came out," Spellman said. "One gym member rushed to help him. He was instantly dead. He had been shot in the neck."

Spellman said he and other gym members ran outside, where he heard further gunfire in the area of 15th Street. In all, he recalled hearing about two shots inside the gym and five or six outside.

Law enforcement arrived within minutes and cordoned off the area. The response included the Metropolitan Police Department as well as heavily armed officers from federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service. Authorities sent alerts warning people to shelter indoors because of an "active shooter" situation, and nearby schools were placed on lockdown. "Go inside the nearest building, stay away from windows, and remain indoors until further notice," police told the public.

Washington, DC's interim police chief, Jeffery Carroll, described the suspect as a white male wearing a grey shirt. According to police, the gunman opened fire inside the gym, then left the building and entered an adjacent one, barricading himself inside a seventh-floor room. Specialised negotiators spoke with him by phone while snipers watched from nearby rooftops, and at one point he shot at officers through the barricaded door. About an hour after negotiations began, officers heard gunfire over the phone and breached the room, where they found the suspect dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

DC Council member Brooke Pinto identified the suspect as Matt Lambert, a physician, and said he initially shot a person in the gym with whom he was involved in a court case over a dispute about the condominium where he lived. Carroll told reporters the shooting appeared to have stemmed from a "conflict between him and the homeowners association of the building". Some unconfirmed reports cited a social media account possibly belonging to the suspect that frequently featured posts about bad living conditions in a condominium in the area. Authorities said one victim had died and another was in critical condition in hospital, and little else has been released about those who were shot.

The attack carries political weight in a capital where law and order has been at the centre of a national debate over the administration of President Donald Trump. An assault in the same Logan Circle area in August 2025, in which a former Department of Government Efficiency official said he was attacked by a group of teenagers attempting to carjack him and a woman he was with, was cited by Trump as a reason to deploy troops to the capital. Trump declared a crime emergency and said his administration was taking control of the federal district's local police force, launching a national push that brought controversial deployments to several Democratic-controlled cities.

Although Washington, DC, has a mayor and city council, Congress and the president hold some authority over its budget and law enforcement. Thousands of National Guard troops deployed by Trump continue, more than a year later, to patrol the city in groups, including in Logan Circle, and are a regular presence at metro stations and downtown locations. Local officials have noted the troops have largely stayed away from higher-crime areas and that their impact has been smaller than Trump has claimed. The troops have also drawn attacks: in November last year a National Guard member was killed and a second wounded by a gunman near 17th and I Streets NW, and in October another was shot during a gunfight in southeast Washington, DC.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, appearing alongside the police chief after the shooting, praised the local response and dismissed the suggestion that the incident had been treated with unusual importance. "I praise [DC police] for bringing down crime in this city, and I praise our prosecutors," Bowser said. "It's not typical to have an active shooter that guns down people in the city, so all our law enforcement responded."