Far-right inspired Krakow mass shooting assailant dies in hospital
Authorities investigating various emblems on clothing of 24-year-old assailant, who killed six in city square after apparently gunning down his family
The man who opened fire in a city square in Poland, killing six people and wounding 15 on Saturday, died in the hospital Monday morning, police said.
Very little information has come out about the shooter, who was shot by police officers and arrested minutes after he opened fire on people at Krakow’s historic main square from his car.
The government said the assailant, 24, from Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, a town of just under 60,000 in southeastern Poland, may have been inspired by far-right ideology, without providing further details.
“There were many different emblems on the perpetrator’s clothing that have been partially examined and interpreted,” Karolina Galecka, an interior ministry spokeswoman, told radio TOK FM on Monday.
“These patches were associated with various motifs that are currently being analyzed by specialists,” she added, declining to comment further as the investigation is ongoing.
The man had been in critical condition after police shot him to end the attack and had undergone several operations.
The assailant drove through the square in the heart of Krakow’s Old Town on Saturday to start the attack. The square is a major tourist hub in the country’s second-largest city.
Authorities also found the bodies of the assailant’s sister, mother, and father at the man’s family home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski. They likely died from gunshot wounds.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the shooting — the deadliest in the country since the end of Communism in 1989 — an act of “terrorism.”
On Sunday night, mourners laid candles and flowers alongside bullet holes in the square where the shooting took place.
“I come here so as not to get caught up in a spiral of fear and anxiety,” Krakow local Maciej Sikorski told The Associated Press from the square. “In a situation like this, it’s all too easy to stop living — to start being afraid instead, and just vegetate. That is something I really want to avoid.”