The “pizzagate” gunman who fired his rifle in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant in 2016, acting on a debunked conspiracy theory, has died after police shot him in a traffic stop.
Edgar Maddison Welch was shot by police over the weekend and died from his injuries Monday, authorities in North Carolina said Thursday.
Prosecutors said at the time that Welch was trying to investigate an internet conspiracy theory about the pizza restaurant’s being home to a child sex-trafficking ring connected to prominent Democratic politicians, a false claim that became known as “pizzagate.”
Police Chief Terry L. Spry of Kannapolis, North Carolina, near Charlotte, said in a news release Thursday that police shot Welch on Saturday during a traffic stop and that a police officer “recognized the front seat passenger as the person with the outstanding warrant for arrest.”
Welch had an outstanding arrest warrant for violating probation, according to the police department.
When an officer opened the passenger door to arrest Welch, Spry said, Welch “pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the direction of the officer” and did not put the gun down when officers ordered him to.
“After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him,” Spry said.
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