The man behind the 2016 ‘Pizzagate’ incident has been shot and killed after a traffic stop in North Carolina.
Edgar Welch, 36, was killed nine years after he walked into a Washington DC pizzeria and fired three shots into the parlour, believing a child sex ring to be operating out of the basement.
This past weekend, he was pulled over during a traffic stop in Kannapolis, North Carolina, when the officer recognised him because of a warrant out for his arrest.
In a statement, Kannapolis Police said: ‘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.
‘When he opened the door, the front seat passenger pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the direction of the officer. That officer and a second officer who was standing at the rear passenger side of the Yukon gave commands for the passenger to drop the gun.
‘After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him.’
Welch died of his injuries two days later. He first made headlines after the incident in 2016, which was sparked by an online conspiracy theory called ‘Pizzagate’.
The words ‘cheese pizza’ were first theorised to be paedophile code for ‘child pornography’ on 4chan during the Pizzagate controversy.
The conspiracy theory first emerged around the 2016 US election and has been completely disproved.
It relates to a series of leaked emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta which mentioned the word ‘pizza’ and making plans at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington.
Anonymous users on 4chan then began speculating that other food-related terms within the emails were referring to specific children or sexual words, despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.
An email about a fundraiser being held at the Comet Ping Pong was then interpreted as a secret conversation about a sex party.
This sparked more conspiracy theories that the site practised Satanism and had an underground dungeon where victims were kept – despite the restaurant not even having a basement.
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