The conspiracy theorist who walked into the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington DC with two guns in late 2016 as part of Pizzagate hysteria was shot by police on January 4 and died this past Monday, according to a press release from the Kannapolis Police Department in North Carolina. Edgar Maddison Welch was a passenger in a car that was pulled over by police on Saturday night January 4th while driving in gray 2001 GMC Yukon, according to Kannapolis Police Department.

“The officer identified the vehicle as being driven by a person he had previously arrested, and was aware that there was an outstanding warrant for arrest. The officer conducted a vehicle stop and upon his interaction with the driver, identified the officer identified the front seat passenger as the person with an outstanding warrant for arrest,” Kannapolis Police said in a statement.

The police department’s statement said the officer was speaking with the driver when two other officers arrived on the scene, and the first officer proceeded to open the front passenger side door.

“When (the officer) opened the door, the front seat passenger pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the officer’s direction,” the police statement read. “That officer and a second officer standing in the rear passenger side of the Yukon ordered the passenger to drop the gun. After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, the two officers fired their duty weapons at the passenger, hitting him.

The police statement said that medical assistance was “the passenger was called immediately” and Welch was taken to Atrium Health Cabarrus hospital in Concord before being transferred to an Atrium hospital in Charlotte when he died on January 6.

“The three traffic stop officers, along with the driver and a back seat passenger of the Yukon were all uninjured in this incident,” the statement read.

The officers who fired their shots have been identified as Officer Brooks Jones and Officer Caleb Tate, who are now on administrative leave, although details about how many shots were fired and who hit whom Welch was not released. A third officer at the scene who was not identified did not fire his weapon.

In December 2016, Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington DC in search of kidnapped and abused children who he believed were being held in a restaurant basement, a conspiracy theory involving former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton became extremely popular online in the lead up to the 2016 election. Welch entered Comet Ping Pong with an AR-15 and a revolver, with a shotgun in his car, and sent families with children fleeing in terror. Welch was reportedly confused when he was told that Comet Ping Pong had no basement, a central part of the conspiracy theory that children were sold and abused there. Pizzagate was started after emails from Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta were released by WikiLeaks and conspiracy theorists became obsessed with the discussion of pizza and the Washington DC pizza place’s name.

Alex Jones was instrumental in helping push the conspiracy theory, along with other right wing influencers like Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec. Here in 2024, Posobiec has become more influential as the editor of Human Events, a “news” outlet that publishes articles occasionally shared by president-elect Donald Trump. Cernovich also has some influence here in the 2020s, as someone who is often associated with billionaire Elon Musk.

“When I think of all the children Hillary Clinton personally killed and maimed and raped, I have no fear of standing up against her,” Jones said in a since-deleted. YouTube video Posted on Nov. 4, 2016, according to Washington Post. “Yes, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton personally killed children. I can’t stop the truth anymore.”

Jones was later banned from YouTube and several other mainstream social media platforms, but was allowed to return to X after Musk bought the site. The InfoWars host has yet to comment on Welch’s murder, but it seems a safe bet that he will eventually.

Welch ultimately pleaded guilty in 2017 to interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition and was sentenced to four years in prison. After his arrest, Welch spoke to New York Times“I regret how I handled the situation” but still seems convinced that the Pizzagate conspiracy theory is true, admitting only that “the intel on it is not 100%.”