Police rule out terrorism in fatal Polish mall stabbing

WARSAW, Poland — Polish police on Friday ruled out terror or political motives in a fatal knife attack at a shopping mall that left one person dead and nine others injured.

Police chief Krzysztof Pobuta said the 27-year-old attacker was not able to explain his motives and was in an emotional state after he stabbed people in the back Friday afternoon at a mall in the southeastern Polish town of Stalowa Wola.

Pobuta said there’s “no terrorist or ideological context for the attack, it is rather his poor psychological condition.”

The man had attacked shoppers at the mall with a knife, killing one person and wounding seven others, a spokesman for Poland’s national police said on Friday afternoon.

Police spokesman Mariusz Ciarka said the man wasn’t drunk when he attacked people at the VIVO! mall in his hometown in southern Poland, Stalowa Wola. The spokesman said that blood tests were being done to determine if the attacker was under the influence of drugs.

Ciarka said the suspect acted “irrationally” and his motives were not known. He had not been known to the police before the attack.

A 50-year-old woman died in the hospital and seven others remained hospitalized after the man allegedly stabbed them in the back.

He was apprehended by other shoppers and held until officers arrived and took him into custody.