Police in Kannapolis, North Carolina, killed 36-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch, the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist who carried a gun into a gay-owned Washington, D.C., pizzeria in 2016 under the belief that the business’ nonexistent basement was a venue for a child-molestation ring that involved high-ranking Democrats.

On January 4, two Kannapolis police officers lethally shot Welch during a traffic stop. One officer pulled Welch over to arrest him for an outstanding warrant for a probation violation. But when the officer opened Welch’s car door to apprehend him, Welch allegedly pulled out a handgun from his jacket and pointed it at the officer. When a second officer told Welch to drop his weapon, Welch reportedly didn’t comply and was fired upon by both officers. He was hospitalized and died from his wounds two days later, The Guardian reported.

The officers — Brooks Jones and Caleb Tate — have been placed on administrative leave while the state’s bureau of investigation looks into the incident.

Welch gained infamy on December 4, 2016, when the then 28-year-old conspiracy theorist entered the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, a D.C. restaurant owned by gay entrepreneur James Alefantis, to “self-investigate” unfounded rumors that the pizzeria was part of a ring of U.S. restaurants involved in alleged human trafficking and a child sex ring that involved high-ranking Democrats like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Welch entered the restaurant with an assault rifle and customers fled, terrified for their lives. Welch then fired at least one shot to break into a storage closet, looking for a basement where the child sex abuse allegedly took place — the restaurant has no basement.

After finding no evidence of the child sex trafficking ring, he exited the restaurant and surrendered himself to police waiting outside. He was subsequently sentenced to four years in prison for a federal charge of interstate transport of firearms and was required to pay  $5,744.33 for damages to the restaurant. 

Three days before the attack, Welch had tried to convince some of his friends to join in his escapade and break up the “pedo ring,” showing them a video about the conspiracy theory on YouTube. 

He reportedly texted one of the friends, “I’m sorry bro, but I’m tired of turning the channel and hoping someone does something and being thankful it’s not my family. One day it will be our families. The world is too afraid to act and I’m too stubborn not to.”

During his trial, Welch told the court he had acted in a “foolish and reckless” way, but he maintained that he still believed in other aspects of Pizzagate.

Pizzagate, which is a precursor to the QAnon conspiracy theory and other right-wing theories of LGBTQ+ people and their allies “grooming” and “sexualizing” children through abuse, began on X (then-Twitter) and right-wing fake news websites, alleging that emails from former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Clinton’s then-campaign chair John Podesta. The conspiracy theorists claimed the emails used code words referring to pedophilia and human trafficking.

In November 2016, a now-deleted post on Reddit claimed that “everyone” associated with Comet Ping Pong “[was] making semi-overt, semi-tongue-in-cheek, and semi-sarcastic inferences towards sex with minors,” adding, “The artists that work for and with the business also generate nothing but cultish [and Satanic] imagery of disembodiment, blood, beheadings, sex, and of course pizza.”

The story circulated on anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing websites like Alex Jones’ InfoWars and was promoted by anti-LGBTQ+ alt-right influencers like Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec. It has since been promoted by transphobic billionaire and X-owner Elon Musk.

In November 2016, Alefantis told The New York Times that his pizzeria and its associated employees had come “under constant assault” due to the conspiracy theory. Its owners, employees, mural painters, and musicians who had previously played at the restaurant received threats of violence and death. Other conspiracy theorists claimed that children who had been photographed eating at Comet Ping Pong were themselves child sex trafficking victims. Several other nearby pizzerias and businesses also received threats. Pictures of Comet Ping Pong’s non-existent basement were, in actuality, just images of other business’ basements.

The business was attacked again on January 25, 2019, when a white man deliberately set a fire in one of its backrooms. However, employees quickly put out the fire, ensuring that no one sustained any injuries. Police arrested the arsonist days later.

Pizzagate has been disproven and debunked by numerous fact-checking and news organizations including Snopes, Fox News, and CNN, as well as investigators at the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.

Alefantis called Pizzagate “an insanely complicated, made-up, fictional lie-based story” and a “coordinated political attack.” Days after Welch’s shooting at the business, Clinton told NPR, “The epidemic of malicious fake news and fake propaganda that flooded social media … can have real-world consequences.”