What to know about Krakow shooting that killed 6 people

Krakow (Poland): Poland was in shock Sunday, November 8, a day after a gunman opened fire, killing six people and wounding 15 in the city of Krakow before police shot and wounded him.

Authorities say the attacker held far-right views, though they did not disclose if he was affiliated with any organised extremist group. Prosecutors say they are investigating the shooting as a terrorist offence.

Police have also found the bodies of the suspect’s parents and sister at the family’s home.

Here is what we know about the mass killing that marked a grim first in modern-day Poland:

The attacker drove into a crowd of people

Police say the 24-year-old attacker, wearing military-style clothing and a bulletproof vest, drove into the city’s Main Square and opened fire. The square, in Krakow’s Old Town, is a major tourist destination in Poland’s second-largest city.

What unfolded was a scene of chaos and terror.

Witnesses described fleeing into nearby shops. British visitor Neil Thaxton said employees ushered him and his wife into the back of a gift shop, locked the doors and switched off the lights. They survived unharmed.

Marie-Ange Collaer, who was visiting from Brussels with her family, wrote on Facebook that they ran for their lives and “managed to hide from the bullets.”

Videos posted on social media show people running away from the square into the small streets nearby, as well as first responders trying to resuscitate victims.

Even after he was wounded by police officers, the attacker continued firing, Krakow police spokesperson Katarzyna Cislo said.

The victims were of different nationalities

Four women and two men were killed in the square.

Regional Governor Krzysztof Kleczar said Sunday that four of the fatalities were Polish. The other two were a British man and a woman from a foreign country that officials had not yet named.

The wounded included people from Britain, Portugal, Russia, Germany and Austria.

Two police officers who stopped the attacker but were themselves wounded in the shootout remained in a hospital on Sunday.

One was still in a coma; the other had regained consciousness, Kleczar said. Officials appealed for blood donations to help the more seriously wounded officer.

After the shooting, authorities paused St. Mary’s Trumpet Call — a traditional five-note melody that is played every hour from the highest tower of St. Mary’s Basilica on Main Square — overnight in tribute to the victims.

It was the first time the call has been missed since World War II.

Few details have been released about the attacker

The attacker, a 24-year-old Polish national, remained in critical condition on Sunday after undergoing several surgeries. Police have not released his name.

Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski described his views as radical and ultranationalist, and said evidence indicated he had a fascination with far-right ideologies.

Prosecutors said they opened an investigation into murder and attempted murder, including attacks on police officers, constituting a terrorist offence.

At the suspect’s home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, about 150 kilometres northeast of Krakow, authorities said they discovered three bodies.

Police identified them as the suspect’s mother and father, and his sister. They said the three likely died from gunshot wounds.

What is known about the weapons used in the attack

Police found four firearms at the scene of the attack. They were recovered from the attacker or from his car.

Kleczar said the attacker’s father legally owned more than 10 guns and that the attacker also owned firearms. Local officials said seven weapons were also seized from the family home, bringing the total firearms recovered to 11.

A shooting club where the attacker is believed to have trained issued a statement Sunday, saying it offered only “static shooting,” which involves firing from a fixed position at a stationary target.

The suspect, it said, “was never trained in our club in the areas of dynamic, tactical or combat shooting.”

Mass shootings are uncommon in Poland, a country of 37 million people where about 411,000 people hold gun permits. Interest in gun ownership has been rising.

Kacper Rekawek, a researcher at the International Centre for Counterterrorism in The Hague, Netherlands, said the attack resembled incidents of far-right “lone wolf” attacks in Europe over the past years.

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