A 24-year-old Polish man suspected of carrying out a fatal shooting spree in Krakow, Poland’s second-largest city, has succumbed to his injuries in hospital, national law enforcement officials announced on Monday morning. The attacker, whom preliminary investigations link to far-right and ultra-nationalist ideological beliefs, unleashed gunfire in the city’s densely crowded Main Market Square shortly before 15:00 local time on a Saturday, triggering immediate emergency responses from armed patrol units.
Law enforcement personnel arrived on site within minutes of the first reports of gunfire and engaged the suspect in an exchange of fire, successfully neutralizing him just three minutes after the assault began — a rapid intervention that officials emphasized prevented a far larger casualty toll and an impending wider massacre. Six total fatalities have been confirmed from the attack, comprising four Polish nationals, one British citizen, and one Austrian woman. Subsequent searches of the suspect’s private residence uncovered three additional bodies, later formally identified as his 53-year-old father, 52-year-old mother, and 21-year-old sister, bringing the full scope of the violence to light. Local Polish media outlets have reported the suspect held a valid firearms permit, and investigators believe he accessed his weapons cache from his family home.
A total of 16 individuals were transported to medical facilities following the rampage, including five foreign nationals hailing from Austria, Britain, Germany, Portugal, and Russia, two uniformed police officers, and the gunman himself. Two civilian surgeons who happened to be dining near the Main Market Square when the shooting broke out rushed into the unsecured danger zone to administer emergency first aid before ambulances could reach the scene, as no other emergency medical personnel were immediately on site. Professor Michal Pędziwiatr, one of the two medics, later recounted to the BBC that his colleague Dr Mateusz Wierdak used his bare hand to apply direct pressure to the most severely wounded police officer’s life-threatening bleed, a move that undoubtedly saved the officer’s life. As of Sunday, both injured police officers had regained consciousness after emerging from medically induced comas.
In response to the unprecedented act of violence, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to Krakow to survey the aftermath, announcing a two-day period of official national mourning across the country. Tusk labeled the assault an unprecedented act of terrorism for modern Poland, noting the nation had never before witnessed such a ruthless, large-scale targeted attack on civilian lives. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham issued an official statement expressing profound shock and sorrow over the senseless tragedy, extending the United Kingdom’s full solidarity to the Polish people and offering condolences to all bereaved families and injured survivors. The Main Market Square, which had been locked down under a heavy security cordon for over 24 hours following the shooting, was fully reopened to the public on Sunday evening after forensic investigations at the scene were completed.