On the basis of a disproven conspiracy theory, the “pizzagate” shooter discharged his rifle in a pizza shop in Washington, D.C., in 2016. He was shot by police during a traffic stop and died.
According to North Carolina officials on Thursday, Edgar Maddison Welch was shot by police over the weekend and passed away on Monday from his wounds.
Motivated by a conspiracy theory that went viral online, Welch made national headlines nearly ten years ago when he drove from North Carolina to the nation’s capital and opened fire in the Comet Ping Pong restaurant.
At the time, prosecutors said that Welch was attempting to look into a fake internet conspiracy theory known as “pizzagate,” which claimed that the pizza place was home to a child sex-trafficking ring associated with well-known Democratic lawmakers.
According to court documents at the time, Welch, who was 28 at the time of the event, ultimately turned himself in to police after failing to discover any proof to back up the conspiracy idea.
In 2017, Welch entered a guilty plea to firearms charges and was given a four-year jail sentence. Investigators found that he had brought a pistol and an AR-15 rifle into the eatery. The gunfire did not injure anyone.
When Welch was a federal judge, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of the Supreme Court sentenced him, stating that his acts “literally left psychological wreckage,” according to The Associated Press.
According to a news release issued Thursday by Police Chief Terry L. Spry of Kannapolis, North Carolina, which is close to Charlotte, Welch was shot by police on Saturday during a traffic stop after a police officer “identified the front seat passenger as the person with the outstanding warrant for arrest.”
The police department said Welch had a pending arrest warrant for probation violations.
Spry claimed that Welch “pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the direction of the officer” when an officer opened the passenger door to arrest him and failed to put the gun down when instructed to do so.
“After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him,” Spry stated.