Edgar Welch, gunman from the “Pizzagate” political conspiracy case, shot and killed by NC State Police

A man who nearly a decade ago fired a gun inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant over a fake online conspiracy theory targeting Democrats and Hillary Clinton called “Pizzagate,” was recently killed by North Carolina state police.

Edgar Welsh was a passenger in a car stopped by officers in Kannapolis, North Carolina, on Jan. 4, according to a news release from the Kannapolis Police Department. An officer identified the vehicle as that of someone they arrested who had an outstanding warrant for a felony probation violation – Welsh, police said.

Annette Previte Keller, communications director for the city of Kannapolis, confirmed that the man who died was the same person involved in the 2016 incident at a Washington, D.C., restaurant.

Authorities said at the time, Welch drove from North Carolina with an assault rifle to the Comet Ping Pong restaurantbelieving a baseless conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring out of a pizzeria. The bogus theory began spreading online at the height of the 2016 presidential election that pitted Clinton against Donald Trump.

Welch entered the restaurant armed, and as customers fled the scene, he shot a locked cabinet inside. After realizing that no children were being held at the pizzeria, Welch surrendered peacefully. No one was injured.

The owner of Comet Ping Pong said the conspiracy theory and subsequent violence resulting from it traumatized him and his employees.

He was 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. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, now a Superior Court judge, sentenced him to four years in prison.

The killing of Welch, a Salisbury resident, is being reviewed by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the officers who shot him are on administrative leave, according to department protocol.

When officers approached the vehicle to arrest Welch, the man pulled out a gun and pointed it at one of them, police said. After he was instructed to drop the weapon but did not, two officers shot Welch, authorities said.

Paramedics took Welch to the hospital and he died from his injuries two days later, according to the statement. Neither the officers nor the driver and another passenger were injured.