Police say a man who said he was investigating a conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place fired an assault rifle inside the Washington, D.C., restaurant Sunday.
Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Aquita Brown says police got a call Sunday afternoon about a male with a weapon on Connecticut Avenue, in an affluent neighborhood of the nation’s capital.
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The Washington Post reports 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina, walked into the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a gun in the direction of a restaurant employee.
WATCH: A man allegedly walked into a Northwest D.C. pizzeria carrying an assault rifle, Metropolitan Police said, in an effort to investigate whether Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used it as a front for a child sex ring.
The employee was able to flee and notify police. The Washington Post reported that’s when the suspect allegedly began shooting.
According to a police statement, Welch told police he’d come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a fictitious conspiracy theory that spread online during Clinton’s run for the White House.
WATCH: D.C. pizzeria owner condemns shooting, false accusations about restaurant