The man who fired a gun at a Washington, DC restaurant nearly a decade ago over a false Internet conspiracy theory targeting Democrats and Hillary Clinton called “Pizzagate” was recently shot and killed by North Carolina police.
Edgar Welch was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by officers in Kannapolis, N.C., on Jan. 4, according to a news release from the Kannapolis Police Department. One of the officers recognized the car as belonging to someone he had arrested who had an outstanding warrant for a probation violation – Welch, police said.
City of Kannapolis Communications Director Annette Privette Keller confirmed the man who died is the same man involved in a 2016 incident at a restaurant in Washington, DC.
At the time, authorities said, Welch drove from North Carolina with an assault rifle to the Comet Ping Pong restaurantbelieving a baseless conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats ran a pizzeria child sex trafficking ring. The false theory began circulating on the Internet at the height of the 2016 presidential election pitting Clinton against Donald Trump.
Welch entered the restaurant armed, and as customers fled the scene, he fired into a locked cabinet inside. After realizing that there were no children trapped in the pizzeria, Welch surrendered peacefully. No one was injured.
The owner of Comet Ping Pong said the conspiracy theory and subsequent violence traumatized him and his staff.
Sentenced to 4 years in prison
Welch later pleaded guilty to interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition and assault with a dangerous weapon in 2017. He was subsequently sentenced to four years in prison by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is now a Superior Court judge.
The shooting death of Welch, a Salisbury resident, is being investigated by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the officers who shot him are on administrative leave, according to department protocol.
Police said when officers approached the vehicle to arrest Welch, the man pulled out a gun and pointed it at one of them. After he was told to drop his weapon, but did not, two officers shot Welch, authorities said.
EMS took Welch to the hospital, and he died from his injuries two days later, according to the release. None of the police officers, as well as the driver and another passenger, were injured.
