A man who fired a gun inside a restaurant in Washington, D.C., after a fake online conspiracy theory called “Pizzagate” motivated him nearly a decade ago was shot and killed by North Carolina police during a weekend traffic stop. Edgar Maddison Welch was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by officers in Kannapolis on Saturday night, said the Kannapolis Police Department. An officer recognized the car as the vehicle of Welch, whom he had arrested and who had an outstanding warrant for a felony probation violation, the Associated Press reports. When the officers approached the vehicle to arrest Welch, police said the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at one of the officers. After he was instructed to drop the weapon but didn’t, two officers shot Welch. Emergency responders took Welch to the hospital and he died from his injuries two days later. None of the officers, nor the driver and another passenger, were injured.
In 2016, Welch drove from North Carolina with an assault rifle to the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington after believing an unfounded conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were operating a child sex trafficking ring out of the pizzeria. The fake theory, dubbed “Pizzagate,” circulated online during the 2016 presidential election campaign. He entered the restaurant armed, and as customers fled the scene, Welch shot at a locked closet. After realizing there were no children held captive in the pizzeria, Welch surrendered. No one was injured. Comet Ping Pong’s owner, James Alefantis, said the conspiracy theory and subsequent violence from it traumatized him and his staff. Welch pled guilty to interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition and assault with a dangerous weapon in 2017. His judge, now Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson, sentenced him to four years in prison.
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