Washington DC shooting: 1 killed, 4 hurt at Logan Circle gym, gunman dead

A gunman killed one person and injured four others at a gym in Washington’s Logan Circle neighbourhood on Thursday morning, 12 November, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. The gym is about a mile north of the White House, which is why the story was first reported as a shooting “near the White House”. Police said the White House had nothing to do with it.

What happened

Police were first called at around 8 AM local time (6 PM in Pakistan), CBS News reported. After the shooting, the gunman left the gym and barricaded himself in a seventh-floor apartment in a building next to it. Officers later found him dead there. Interim Police Chief Jeff Carroll said the man died from a self-inflicted wound, according to NPR.

The Secret Service and the FBI also responded, because of how close the scene was to the White House, not because of any link to it.

Who was the gunman?

Police have not released his name. CBS News, citing police, said he was a white man who was believed to be a member of the gym. He had a long-running dispute with his building’s homeowners’ association: he had complained about it on X and filed a lawsuit against the building, CBS reported. Police have not said whether that dispute had anything to do with the people he shot.

The names of the person killed and the four injured had not been released by Thursday afternoon in Washington.

Why it trended in Pakistan

Early headlines in Pakistan and India said five people had been shot “near the White House”, and BBC Urdu carried the story too. That framing spread fast because of the tense mood in Washington over the Iran war and recent threats against US officials. The facts so far point to a local dispute, not an attack on the government.

Police say the investigation is continuing, so details such as the motive and the victims’ names may change. The next update is expected from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington.