Krakow Gunman Dies in Hospital Two Days After Market Square Attack That Killed Six

Since Saturday's shooting in Krakow's Main Market Square, which killed six people, the gunman has died. Lesser Poland police announced on X early Monday that "the perpetrator of the tragic events died in hospital early this morning." Regional governor Krzysztof Klęczar told TVN24 the man died at 4:30 a.m.

The 24-year-old had been in critical condition after police shot him to end the attack. He had undergone several operations. Police have not confirmed his name.

No trial, but a terrorism investigation continues

Prosecutors opened an investigation on Sunday into the murder of six people and the attempted murder of many others, including police officers. They said the act constitutes "a terrorist offence." Prime Minister Donald Tusk called it terrorism. Poland's defense minister called it an "act of terror."

With the suspect dead, there will be no courtroom account of what happened. The case now rests on physical evidence, the weapons, and what investigators can reconstruct from his home, clothing and belongings.

Interior ministry spokeswoman Karolina Gałecka said Monday on radio TOK FM that the gunman wore "many different emblems" on his clothing. Specialists are still analysing them, she said. She declined to say more, citing the ongoing investigation.

Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said Saturday that the man held "very radical" and "ultra-nationalistic" views. "Everything indicates that he was fascinated by far-right ideologies," he said. That is the minister's assessment of an investigation that is still open, not a finding by prosecutors.

Autopsies and the family home

Autopsies of the six people killed in Krakow and of three people found dead at the gunman's home in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski were due to begin Monday morning, according to prosecutors' announcements. Police identified the three as his father, 53, his mother, 52, and his sister, 21.

Kamil Tokarski, spokesman for Świętokrzyskie police, said officers identified injuries on the bodies that they assess as gunshot wounds. He said the cause and nature of death will be clarified. They will establish how the family died and when.

The guns

Kierwiński said the gunman's father legally owned more than 10 firearms and that the son also owned guns. Local officials seized seven weapons from the family home. That brings the total recovered to 11, including four found on the man in Krakow or in his car.

Police said the man had no prior convictions and no police record. He held a firearms licence, and police said he probably fired from one of the weapons covered by that permit. Polish media have reported he may have obtained weapons from the family home. Authorities have not publicly explained how the weapons were stored or how he gained access to them.

Poland has long been regarded as safer than many European neighbours. Euronews described this as the deadliest shooting in the country since the end of communism in 1989. The Guardian reported that it has deepened concern about extremism after several school stabbings in October that left one woman dead. Officials linked those stabbings to extremist content online. No source has tied the two events together.

The wounded and the officers

Of the dead, four were Polish, one was British and one was Austrian. Four were women and two were men.

Klęczar said Monday that 15 injured people remain in six Krakow hospitals and that their condition is unchanged. Casualty counts have varied. Early figures put the wounded at 15, and some tallies are higher, because the sixteen hospitalised included the attacker. Five of the wounded are foreign nationals from Britain, Austria, Germany, Portugal and Russia.

The two police officers who confronted the gunman were both injured. One was gravely hurt. Both were conscious by Sunday, and one remains in serious condition. Officials said the gunman was shot within three minutes of the attack beginning. Klęczar said that without the officers' "efficient and selfless intervention" the number of victims "could have been significantly higher."

Professor Michał Pędziwiatr, one of two surgeons who happened to be eating near the square, told the BBC they treated the officers and the attacker on the street because no ambulances had yet arrived. He said his colleague, Dr Mateusz Wierdak, used his hand to stem a severely wounded officer's bleeding until help came.

Mourning continues

Monday is the second of two days of national mourning. Krakow residents have left candles and flowers beside bullet holes in the square. "I come here so as not to get caught up in a spiral of fear and anxiety," local resident Maciej Sikorski told The Associated Press.

The open questions now fall to prosecutors. They have not said what the emblems on the gunman's clothing mean, how he obtained and carried the arsenal, or how his family came to die at their home before the attack. Gałecka said the emblem analysis is still under way. The autopsy results are the next set of findings expected.