Nearly ten years ago, during a weekend traffic stop in North Carolina, police shot and killed a man who had opened fire inside a restaurant in the nation’s capital, apparently inspired by a false internet conspiracy theory known as “Pizzagate.”
A news statement from the Kannapolis Police Department states that on Saturday night, police pulled over a car in which Edgar Maddison Welch was a passenger. Welch, who had an outstanding warrant for a felony probation violation, was identified by one of the policemen as the vehicle of the person he had detained, according to the police.
According to the police, Welch allegedly brandished a pistol at one of the policemen as they approached the car to apprehend him. According to the authorities, two cops shot Welch after he disregarded orders to put down the firearm.
Welch was transported to the hospital by emergency personnel; the report states that he succumbed to his injuries two days subsequent to his arrival. Nobody got hurt—not the cops, not the driver, not even another passenger.
Based on an unproven conspiracy theory, Welch believed that top Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring out of the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington, DC, in 2016. He allegedly drove from North Carolina to the capital city armed with an assault weapon. The false notion, which went by the name “Pizzagate,” started making the rounds online as the 2016 presidential campaign was underway.
Welch stormed the restaurant armed with a shotgun, shooting at a closed closet as patrons rushed for cover. It was only after Welch realized the pizzeria did not have any children kept prisoner that he surrendered calmly. Everyone escaped unharmed.
Comet Ping Pong’s owner, James Alefantis, expressed the anguish that he and his crew experienced as a result of the conspiracy theories and the violence that followed.
In 2017, Welch admitted to assault with a deadly weapon and interstate carriage of a firearm and ammunition. Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson, who is now a justice on the Supreme Court, was his judge and handed him a four-year jail term.
The man who died was positively identified as the same one implicated in the “Pizzagate” event, according to Annette Privette Keller, the director of communications for the city of Kannapolis.
According to department policy, the officers who opened fire on Salisbury resident Welch are on administrative leave while the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation investigates his shooting death.
