Krakow attacker killed six before police stopped him
National mourning began Sunday after a 24-year-old man drove a car into a main square and opened fire, leaving 15 others injured.
By Lorenzo Evans ·
Six people died and 15 were wounded on Saturday in Krakow, Poland, when a 24-year-old man with far-right views drove into a crowded central square and opened fire. The attack took place in Main Square, a major tourist hub in the country's second-largest city. Police shot and wounded the gunman, ending the violence after a chaotic sequence of events that left witnesses hiding in shops and local officials declaring a state of national mourning.
Krzysztof Jan Klęczar, the Malopolska regional governor, said on Sunday that four of the victims were Polish women and one was a Polish man. A British man and a foreign woman of unidentified nationality were also killed. Among the 15 wounded were five tourists from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Russia, Germany, and Austria. The square remained partially closed on Sunday morning as authorities continued their investigation, and mourners left candles for the dead by Saturday evening.
The suspect, whose age was initially reported as 25 before being corrected to 24, is in critical condition following multiple surgeries. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński stated that the man held “very radical” and “ultranationalistic” views and that “everything indicates that he was fascinated by far-right ideologies.” Local officials in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, about 150 kilometers northeast of Krakow, found the bodies of the suspect’s parents and sister at their family home. They likely died from gunshot wounds.
Authorities recovered 11 weapons in total, including seven seized from the family home and four found on the suspect or in his car in Krakow. Both the father and son held gun permits. In Poland, approximately 411,000 people hold such permits out of a population of 37 million. The Swit shooting club in Starachowice, where the suspect is believed to have trained, issued a statement on Sunday saying it offered only “static shooting” and that the man “was never trained in our club in the areas of dynamic, tactical or combat shooting.”
Two police officers who stopped the gunman remain in the hospital but were conscious by Sunday afternoon. Klęczar described their intervention as “efficient and selfless,” noting that the number of victims could have been “significantly higher” without their actions. Two local surgeons, Michał Pędziwiatr and Mateusz Wierdak, also assisted the injured officer nearby. Pędziwiatr told Polish news website onet that Wierdak stopped the bleeding in the officer's chest without protection or gloves, which “probably saved his life.”
The St. Mary’s Trumpet Call, a traditional five-note melody played hourly from St. Mary’s Basilica, was paused overnight. It was the first time the call had been missed since World War II. Prosecutors opened an investigation into the murder and attempted murder of numerous people, ruling the act a “constituting a terrorist offense.”
Kacper Rekawek, a senior researcher at the International Center for Counterterrorism in The Hague, said the attacker’s military gear and appearance were similar to other “extreme right lone actors” committing attacks across Europe. He noted that while there have been attempts before, these kinds of attacks have “become successful in Poland.” In mid-October, three separate attacks at schools in the central province of Mazovia left one person dead and many wounded, with officials blaming online “glorification of violence” and far-right environments.
