AP
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A man who fired a gun inside a restaurant in the nation’s capital nearly a decade ago in the wake of a fake online conspiracy theory called “Pizzagate” was shot and killed by police in North Carolina during a traffic stop over the weekend.
Edgar Madison Welch was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by a police officer Saturday night in Kannapolis, according to a news release from the Kannapolis Police Department. Welch police said one of the officers recognized the vehicle as belonging to a person he had arrested who had an outstanding warrant for a felony violation of probation.
As officers approached the vehicle to arrest Welch, the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at one of the officers, police said. Authorities said two officers shot Welch when he failed to drop his weapon when told to do so.
Paramedics took Welch to the hospital, where he died from his injuries two days later, the statement said. The police officer, driver, and other passengers were not injured.
In 2016, authorities said Welch believed in an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a pizza restaurant and flew from North Carolina to Comet Ping Pong in Washington with an assault rifle.・I drove to the restaurant. This false theory, known as “Pizzagate,” began circulating online during the 2016 presidential election.
Welch entered the restaurant armed and fired shots into a locked closet as customers fled the scene. After learning that there were no children captured at the pizzeria, Welch surrendered peacefully. There were no injuries.
At the time, Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis said the conspiracy theories and subsequent violence had traumatized him and his staff.
Welch later pleaded guilty in 2017 to charges of interstate transportation of firearms and ammunition and assault with a dangerous weapon. His judge, now Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, then sentenced him to four years in prison.
Kannapolis Public Affairs Director Annette Privett Keller confirmed that the deceased man was the same person involved in the Pizzagate incident.
The shooting death of Welch, a Salisbury resident, is being investigated by the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, and the officers who fired their shots are on administrative leave per the agency’s protocol.
