The police fatally shot a man in Kannapolis, North Carolina, who had fired an assault weapon inside a Washington, D.C., diner in December 2016, while claiming that he was investigating the “pizzagate”, hoax.
Kannapolis Police stated, “On the night of January 4, Edgar Welch, a passenger in a 2001 GMC Yukon was stopped by police officers.”
Police said that officers conducted the traffic stop after they identified the vehicle as belonging to Welch. Welch was wanted for an arrest warrant at the time.
Police said that when officers recognized Welch, they moved to arrest him. Welch produced a gun from his jacket, pointed it at an officer, and then refused to obey commands to drop it. Two officers then opened fire.
Two days later, police reported that he died from his injuries at a local hospital on January 6.
Police said that the three officers who were involved in the traffic arrest and the other two occupants of Welch’s car were not injured.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation confirmed Welch as the shooter in the “pizzagate”.
Welch shot his gun inside the Comet Ping Pong Restaurant on Dec. 4, 2016. He had driven there from North Carolina to investigate a false conspiracy theory by the far right claiming that Democrats ran a child sex ring at the restaurant. This claim was the source of numerous threats made against the eatery.
Authorities said that after he entered the restaurant, with an AR-15 assault weapon and a revolver in hand, he shot the rifle at a door. The incident did not result in any injuries.
Later, he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of interstate transport of a firearm as well as assault with a deadly weapon. In June 2017, he was sentenced to four years in prison by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji B. Jackson.
