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 (ah-KWEE'-tah) 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.

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.

The employee was able to flee and notify police.

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.