Edgar Maddison Welch was sentenced to four years in prison after walking into a D.C. pizza shop with a rifle in 2016
The man who fired his rifle into a pizza shop in Washington, D.C. in 2016 was fatally shot by North Carolina police over the weekend. He allegedly pulled a gun on officers during a traffic stop, according to a statement.
Edgar Maddison Welch walked into family-friendly Comet Ping Pong with a AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in 2016, believing the Pizzagate conspiracy theories claiming the restaurant was a hub for child sex trafficking. As customers and employees fled the scene, Welch entered the kitchen and shot open a locked door, which contained cooking supplies. He opened another door and found an employee bringing in pizza dough. After Welch did not find any captive children, he dropped his guns, walked out of the shop unarmed, and was arrested. He pleaded guilty to assault and a weapons charge in 2017 and received a four year prison sentence.
On Jan. 4, police in Kannapolis, North Carolina said they stopped a GMC Yukon after determining that the passenger was Welch, who had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for a felony probation violation, according to a release by Chief of Police Terry L. Spry. After the officer who made the traffic stop opened the front passenger’s door to arrest Welch, he allegedly pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the officer’s direction.
“That officer and a second officer who was standing at the rear passenger side of the Yukon gave commands for the passenger to drop the gun,” Spry stated. The chief said that when Welch “failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him.”
Welch was hospitalized and died from his injuries on Jan. 6, per the statement. The officers who fired their weapons during the incident were identified as Brooks Jones and Caleb Tate.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting and officers, who are on administrative leave.
