Medical doctor identified as the shooter who fatally injured one person and wounded others in D.C.

The 55-year-old gunman who opened fire in a neighbourhood near the White House has been identified as an emergency room doctor. 

One person was killed in the attack and four others were injured in Washington, DC’s Logan Circle neighborhood, according to police. 

The assailant, identified by police as Matt Lambert, an emergency room doctor, f@tally injured his building manager after firing at him inside a gym with a handgun. 

He then entered the building, where he fired at four more people with a rifle from his seventh-floor balcony, authorities said. 

One of the victims remains in critical condition. 

Lambert later passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after barricading himself inside his apartment, according to police. 

He had been locked in a legal dispute with his building’s management over a mold problem in his unit.
 

Attorney Joel Braithwaite, who represented the shooter in a civil case against his condo, said the legal dispute and home maintenance cost the suspect $300,000. 

Braithwaite believes his client had been in the condo since 2017. Property records show he purchased the unit for more than $1 million in 2016. 

Braithwaite said his client considered the D.C. condo “his prized possession.” But soon after moving in, he reported mold and water issues, and spent thousands on mold mitigation, according to the civil case. 

“He moved back to the mountains of West Virginia, where he has a country home, and he’s out there because that’s where he grew up. Once this situation became untenable, he moved out and cleared it out," the attorney said. 

Litigation against housing management became “incredibly expensive," the attorney said. 

“He reports last week that he had been out of pocket over $300,000, and climbing, because the case was not going to wrap up in a day or two," he added. 

He said his client felt wronged and as though the condo association took no ownership for the issues he had with the unit. 

Speaking on the unit, Braithwaite said: “It doesn’t look hospitable, and no one would want to live in those sorts of situations when you paid for something substantially different.” 

The attorney said the man who was slain in the incident was a "central fact witness" in the civil case. Authorities identified the victim as James Stuart. 

“He was also very pivotal in relaying information to the [apartment housing] board,” I believe," Braithwaite told reporters. 

Braithwaite learned his client was involved in a shooting via an email from a reporter. He said he never knew his client had a gun and was shocked by his actions. 

The attorney said the day of the attack also marks the anniversary of Lambert's mother's passing. 

"I don’t know how all of those things coalesce. But unfortunately, this is a choice that I hope that my clients would never make," he said.