John Jefferson
FILE – Edgar Maddison Welch, of Salisbury, N.C., surrenders to police in Washington on Dec. 4, 2016 (Sathi Soma via AP, File).
The man who showed up at a popular Washington, D.C., pizzeria with an automatic weapon after falling for a debunked online conspiracy involving allegations of child sex trafficking has been shot to death in a traffic stop in North Carolina.
Edgar Maddison Welch, 36, died during a confrontation with police in Kannapolis on Jan. 4, according to a statement from the Kannapolis Police Department. It began at around 10 a.m. on North Cannon Boulevard in Kannapolis, a city around 30 miles northeast of Charlotte, when a police officer on patrol recognized a gray 2001 GMC Yukon “as one normally driven by an individual who he had previously arrested, and knew had an outstanding warrant for arrest.”
That individual, Welch, was wanted for “Felony Probation Violation,” the statement said. It is unclear whether that probation violation is in connection with the 4-year prison sentence he was ordered to serve for his Dec. 4, 2016, attack on Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington, D.C. On that day, Welch brought a loaded AR-15, a revolver, and a shotgun to the Comet Ping Pong restaurant — which had become a target in the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory — on Connecticut Avenue in the nation’s capital. After arriving at the restaurant, an armed Welch went inside while “carrying the AR-15 openly,” causing employees and customers, including children, to flee.
Although Welch was apparently not behind the wheel at the time of the traffic stop in North Carolina, the officer soon realized that he was in the front passenger seat. While the officer was talking to the driver, Kannapolis police say, two other officers arrived on the scene to assist.
“The officer who initiated the traffic stop approached the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the front passenger’s door to arrest the individual,” the statement says. “When he opened the door, the front seat passenger pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the direction of the officer.”
The officer and a second officer ordered Welch to drop the gun, but he didn’t follow those instructions.
“After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him,” the statement says.
Although Welch initially survived and was taken first to an area hospital and later transferred to Charlotte, he ultimately died on Jan. 6.
“The three officers on the traffic stop, along with the driver and a back seat passenger of the Yukon were all uninjured in this incident,” the police statement noted.
Police say that an investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is ongoing, and the officers who fired at Welch are on administrative leave.
According to the DOJ, Welch’s attempted takedown of Comet was “motivated, at least in part, by unfounded rumors concerning a child sex-trafficking ring that supposedly was being perpetrated at the establishment.”
“At one point, Welch encountered a locked room and attempted to force open the door, first using a butter knife and then discharging his assault rifle multiple times into the door,” the DOJ said. Welch later turned the gun toward an employee who had entered the restaurant carrying pizza dough. No one was injured in the incident, a fact that now-Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was overseeing the case at the time, said was only a matter of “sheer luck.”
Welch pleaded guilty in March 2017 to federal weapons charges and a District of Columbia charge of assault with a dangerous weapon and was sentenced in June of that year to four years in prison.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was no longer in custody as of May 28, 2020. The federal docket shows that in July of that year, jurisdiction was transferred to federal court in North Carolina, and the probation recommendation that apparently preceded that transfer was sealed from the docket.
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