(January 9, 2025 at 8:12 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Man who attacked D.C. pizza parlor in 2016 is killed by police in N.C.
Quote:A North Carolina man who fired shots into a popular D.C. pizza parlor that internet conspiracy theorists convinced him housed a satanic pedophile ring was shot to death last week by two North Carolina police officers. Authorities said he pulled a gun on them during a traffic stop.
Edgar Maddison Welch became the name and face associated with the “Pizzagate” theory — the bizarre suggestion that children were being trafficked out of Comet Ping Pong, a busy, family-oriented pizza shop on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. On a Sunday afternoon in December 2016, having driven straight from his hometown of Salisbury, North Carolina, police said, Welch walked into the restaurant openly carrying an AR-15-style rifle and a revolver, causing customers and employees to flee in horror.
After a few minutes, Welch encountered a locked room and tried to force open the door, firing his rifle multiple times into the door, federal prosecutors said. After spending more than 20 minutes inside, Welch dropped his guns and exited Comet Ping Pong unarmed. No one was hurt. He would later plead guilty to federal firearms charges and receive a sentence of four years in prison. Federal records show he was released from custody in May 2020.
On the morning of Jan. 4, police in Kannapolis, North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte, said they encountered Welch as a passenger in a GMC Yukon and determined he was wanted for a felony probation violation. Officers moved to his side of the car and ordered him out of the vehicle, according to a release from the Kannapolis Police Department.
When an officer attempted to open the passenger door to arrest Welch, police allege that Welch pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it at the officer. That officer, and a second officer who arrived to assist, commanded Welch to drop the weapon, Kannapolis police said. Authorities allege that he refused, leading both officers to fire, police said.
Welch was hospitalized and died Jan. 6, police said. Kannapolis police identified the officers as Brooks Jones and Caleb Tate. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting.
Quoth Stephen King, "No big loss."
