A North Carolina man who fired an assault rifle in a Washington, D.C. pizzeria in 2016 while acting on an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory died on Monday from a gunshot wound after a local traffic stop.
Edgar Maddison Welch was shot by police during a traffic stop over the weekend and died from his injuries two days later, the Kannapolis Police Department said in a Thursday press release.
In 2016, Welch traveled from North Carolina to D.C. and fired a shot inside the Comet Ping Pong restaurant. He claimed, at the time, to be investigating the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, were operating a child sex trafficking ring out of the restaurant.
Welch was sentenced to four years in prison. The theory became known as Pizzagate, which circulated among far-right conspiracy theory websites and social media accounts.
Police in Kannapolis, near Charlotte, said Thursday that they pulled over a gray 2001 GMC Yukon associated with Welch due to his outstanding warrant for parole violation. During the Saturday stop, Welch aimed a gun at officers, according to police.
Police fired at Welch after he "failed to comply with their repeated requests" to put the gun down, according to the release.
The shooting is under review by the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation and the officers involved are on administrative leave, per the department's protocol.
