An American, who opened fire in a Washington pizzeria at the end of 2016 because he believed in a conspiracy theory about a pedophile ring led by Democrat Hillary Clinton, was killed by the police, the press reported Thursday local. Edgar Maddison Welch died Monday, two days after refusing to comply during a police traffic stop in North Carolina, according to the newspaper Charlotte Observer. Edgar Maddison Welch made headlines in the United States and abroad for a false pedophilia scandal known as “pizzagate” in early December 2016, a month after Donald Trump’s presidential victory against Hillary Clinton.
It was a widespread rumor that a family restaurant in an upscale, residential neighborhood of Washington, haunt of the Democratic Party elite and venue for a fundraising event for candidate Hillary Clinton, was hosting its basements an alleged network that kidnapped, exploited and sexually tortured children.
False information fueled at the time by the far-right QAnon movement and internet forums such as 4chan. On Sunday, December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, then 28 years old, after three days of reading conspiracy theories on the internet about these alleged Democratic pedophiles, drove hours from North Carolina to break into the Comet Ping pizzeria Pong, armed with an assault rifle. He wanted, according to him, to investigate the “pizzagate” affair. He fired at the ground and ceiling, without causing any injuries, and was immediately arrested.
Sentenced to four years in prison in the spring of 2017, he was released in March 2020 and was no longer talked about. But on Saturday, as the story goes Charlotte ObserverEdgar Maddison Welch was mistaken for another wanted person when police pulled him over while driving a car in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Police officers tried to open the door of the vehicle to arrest him, before the 30-year-old brandished a firearm and refused to comply. The police then shot him and the man died in hospital on Monday.
Since “pizzagate”, there have been a number of accusations of child abuse used for political purposes, notably by the American extreme right.
