One person was killed and four wounded in a shooting on Thursday in a busy neighborhood of Washington, D.C., the police said.
The violence, which began before 8 a.m., took place at a gym in the Logan Circle section, but also at a construction site across the street and in the lobby of a nearby building, officials said, and it prompted a widespread response by law enforcement officers.
The police officers who first answered the call found a man dead inside the VIDA gym, said Jeff Carroll, the city’s acting police chief.
One of the wounded victims was in critical condition; the others suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the police said. The suspect, who barricaded himself in the building, was found with a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police said. They did not give his identity.
Authorities said that the shooting appeared to have stemmed from a conflict between the gunman and the homeowners association of the apartment building in which he lived and where he was found barricaded on the seventh floor. Officials did not provide more details.
The Logan Circle area where the shooting occurred is a primarily residential neighborhood less than a mile from the White House and home to coffee shops and other businesses.
During the manhunt, dozens of law enforcement vehicles, some from federal agencies, blocked the streets, including several SWAT units. An emergency alert to cellphones in the area instructed people to shelter in place.
Helicopters circled overhead as ambulances arrived, and snipers were spotted atop the roof of a nearby condo building.
Phil Morton, 37, said he had just arrived at work when he heard a “parade of police cars” and screeching tires outside his office. Mr. Morton, a vehicle safety engineer, said he initially thought the activity might be a presidential motorcade.
The gym, housed within the Metropole building, is typically moderately busy on a Thursday morning. Usually, several dozen occupants are spread out across three floors.
Suzanne Garwood, 55, said that she had been in a locker room when she heard “an enormous bang.” Outside the room, she smelled gun smoke. Another patron told her there had been a shooting.
Gym staff members ushered Ms. Garwood, an attorney who lives in Arlington, Va., out a side door and into an alleyway. She walked back toward the gym to grab her bike and heard what she believed to be more gunshots, Ms. Garwood said.
She then took shelter in an apartment building with about a dozen other gym goers.
Elisabeth Pinsker, a resident of the condo building above VIDA, said that fire alarms sounded before 8 a.m., and a short time later, officials were evacuating the residents.
“Pound, pound, pound,” she said, describing the sound at her door. “’Get out of the building,” said the officer. As she left the building, she saw police coming in, with “with big guns, not just handguns,” she said.
Michael Gold, Erik Wemple and Clarence Williams contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
