Gunman has been arrested.
A self-styled investigator who was fact-checking on fake news regarding a child sex racket being run by Hillary Clinton inside a pizzeria in a Washington, DC, has been arrested and charged after he opened fire using assault rifle inside the restaurant.
According to reports, 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked into the Comet Ping Pong restaurant on Sunday and pointed his rifle at a hotel employee who managed to escape and alert the police of an unidentified gunman.
The man began to shoot inside the restaurant, making the diners run for cover. Many of the diners took shelter inside the Banana Leaf Indian restaurant.
Vivek Jain, a patron of Banana Leaf, was quoted by The Washington Post saying “A bunch of people ran in from Comet and said a man walked in with a gun.â€
According to one diner who witnessed the events unfolding in Comet Ping Pong hotel, he was sitting along with his one-year-old child when the man entered the hotel that was crowded with many families.
The Interim DC police Chief Peter Newsham said that the gunman was arrested 45 minutes after he entered the hotel premises. He also confirmed that it took just a few minutes’ time for the police to fling into action after they received a distress call from a restaurant employee.
Jain was quoted saying that Welch was seen walking outside the Ping Pong hotel with his hands in the air.
“He laid down on Connecticut Avenue and he was immediately picked up by the police and taken away,†he added.
Police have confirmed that they have recovered two firearms in addition to the assault rifle from the restaurant and also retrieved an additional one from the car in which Welch was traveling.
In his statement to the police, Welch told that he came to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a fake news story dubbed ‘Pizzagate.’ which claimed that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was running a child sex racket in the restaurant. circulated online in the days before the presidential election.
The hotel owner claims that despite the authorities finding no proof and announcing the report completely false, there are people who make threat calls to its employees and the owner himself.