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Edgar Maddison Welch was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by
officers in Kannapolis on Saturday night, according to a
Kannapolis Police Department news release. One of the officers
recognized the car as the vehicle of someone he had arrested and
who had an outstanding warrant for a felony probation violation
— Welch, police said.
When the officers approached the vehicle to arrest Welch, police
said the man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at one of the
officers. After he was instructed to drop the weapon but didn't,
two officers shot Welch, authorities said.
Emergency responders took Welch to the hospital and he died from
his injuries two days later, according to the release. None of
the officers, nor the driver and another passenger, were
injured.
In 2016, authorities said, Welch drove from North Carolina with
an assault rifle to Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington
after believing an unfounded conspiracy theory that prominent
Democrats were operating a child sex trafficking ring out of the
pizzeria. The fake theory, dubbed “Pizzagate,” began circulating
online during the 2016 presidential election.
He entered the restaurant armed, and as customers fled the
scene, Welch shot at a locked closet inside. After realizing
there were no children held captive in the pizzeria, Welch
peacefully surrendered. No one was injured.
At the time, Comet Ping Pong's owner, James Alefantis, said the
conspiracy theory and subsequent violence from it traumatized
him and his staff.
Welch later pled guilty to interstate transportation of a
firearm and ammunition and assault with a dangerous weapon in
2017. His judge, now Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown
Jackson, subsequently sentenced him to four years in prison.
City of Kannapolis communications director Annette Privette
Keller confirmed the man who died was the same one involved in
the “Pizzagate” incident.
The shooting death of Welch, a resident of Salisbury, is under
review by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and
the officers who fired at him are on administrative leave, per
the department's protocol.
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