Krakow shooting: six dead on Main Square
A 25-year-old Pole wounded 15 people, and the bodies of three close relatives were found at his home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Prime Minister Tusk said.
The Krakow shooting on Saturday, November 7, left six people dead and 15 wounded on Main Square (Rynek Glowny) in the Old Town, one of Poland’s main tourist destinations. It raises questions about security in a member of the European Union and NATO, where mass shootings are rare. For readers in Serbia the news is not distant simply because it happened in another country: five of the wounded are foreigners, one of the dead is a British citizen, and the sources we reviewed do not mention any Serbian nationals.
What happened on Main Square?
The shooting began at around 3 p.m. The attacker drove to several spots on the square and fired at random people from each, authorities say. The city transport company reported that a tram passing nearby was also hit: the driver said a man in a moving car had fired on the vehicle, and the cab window was smashed. The animal protection group OTOZ Animals said two horses from the tourist carriages on the square were hit as well. Both survived; one was grazed by bullets and the other was hit in the leg.
Police wounded him not far from the site of the first attack, but he kept firing afterward, said Katarzyna Cislo, spokeswoman for the Krakow police. She also described him driving “wildly” around the square, which is why people were hurt in several locations. She added that the attacker appeared to have acted alone and that the public is not in danger.
What is known about the victims and the attacker?
Four women and two men were killed. Authorities in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship raised the death toll from five to six. At least three of the women are Polish citizens and one victim is a British citizen; at the time of the press conference, police were still establishing the identities of the other two.
Fifteen people were wounded. Authorities say 13 people in total were hospitalized in serious condition, but that figure may include the attacker himself, who underwent surgery. Two of the wounded were treated and sent home within a few hours. Two police officers are among the wounded, and one of them is seriously hurt, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said. Police chief Marek Boron said five of the wounded are foreigners.
The suspect is a 25-year-old Polish citizen whose name has not been released. He is under guard after surgery. He wore a military camouflage uniform and body armor and fired a long, military-style weapon, Cislo said; according to authorities, as relayed by CNBC, it was an automatic weapon. More weapons and ammunition were found in his car. It is not known whether the firearms were legal. In Poland, about 411,000 people hold a gun license.
What was found at the suspect’s home?
A few hours after the attack, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the bodies of three of the suspect’s close relatives, two women and one man, were found at his home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, about 150 kilometers (about 93 miles) northeast of Krakow.
“We have the following acts of this tragedy,” Tusk told reporters.
At the press conference, Kierwinski said the suspect holds very radical, ultranationalist views: “Everything indicates that he was fascinated by far-right ideologies,” the minister said. Poland’s defense minister called the attack an act of terrorism. Tusk traveled from Warsaw to Krakow.
How did Krakow, Warsaw and Brussels react?
Krakow Mayor Lukasz Gibala declared mourning until Wednesday and said the city remains open to visitors. “The square will be ours again,” he said in a video posted on X.
Kierwinski praised the Krakow police on the same platform:
“Police officers in Krakow risked their lives to intervene. Immediately. Thanks to their heroic actions, the attacker was quickly arrested.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas offered condolences and wrote on X: “In this moment of mourning, Poland is not alone.” Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski announced stepped-up security measures, including barriers on the streets of Warsaw’s Old Town.
How unusual are such attacks in Poland?
Mass shootings are rare in Poland, but in mid-October three attacks on schools took place in Mazovia over four days, in which one person died and several others, including children, were wounded. The investigation into the background of the Krakow attack is only beginning, and Tusk said police are examining its circumstances.
