Fake story led gunman to pizzeria:

A man who said he was investigating a fake news story about Hillary Clinton running a child sex ring out of a pizza place was arrested after firing a rifle inside the

Washington, DC, restaurant, police said.

Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 of Salisbury, North Carolina, was arrested Sunday afternoon at Comet Ping Pong on Connecticut Avenue in an affluent neighborhood of the nation’s capital, police said. No one was injured in the incident. Welch told police he’d come to the

restaurant to “self-investigate” the fictitious online conspiracy theory that spread online during Clinton’s unsuccessful run for the White House, a police statement said.

Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Aquita (ah-KWEE’-tah) Brown said police first received a call Sunday

afternoon about a male with a weapon.

Welch walked into the front door of the restaurant and pointed a gun in the direction of an employee, the police statement said. The employee fled and notified police.

Police set up a perimeter and arrested Welch safely, Interim DC Police Chief Peter Newsham said. Welch was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.

Bartender Lee Elmore told news outlets that people in the restaurant started to panic as the man walked to the back of the restaurant. (AP)