Kraków market square shooting suspect dies in hospital, Digi Mart USA News (Kraków, Poland): A gunman suspected of killing six people in a popular market square in Kraków has died in hospital, Polish police said early on Monday.
The suspect, a 24-year-old named in local media as Michal O, had been wounded in a shootout with police and was in critical condition in hospital. Authorities say he was probably inspired by far-right ideologies.
“We would like to inform you that the perpetrator of the tragic events died in hospital early this morning,” Malopolska Policja wrote on X.
Polish prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation after the man opened fire on Saturday afternoon, killing six people, including a Briton, and injuring 17. The attack shocked a country that was considered safer than many of its European neighbours.
Karolina Galecka, an interior ministry spokeswoman, told radio TOK FM on Monday that many different emblems on the perpetrator’s clothing had been partially examined and interpreted. She said these patches were associated with various motifs that are currently being analysed by specialists, and she declined to comment further as the investigation was ongoing.
Police confirmed on Sunday that three people found dead at the gunman’s home after the attack were his father, 53, mother, 52, and sister, 21.
Five of the wounded are foreign nationals from Britain, Austria, Germany, Portugal and Russia. Two police officers were also among the injured, one of whom was in serious condition.
As two days of national mourning began, the national prosecutor’s office said on social media it had launched an investigation into “the killing of six people … using a firearm, and the attempted murder of many others, including police officers, this act constituting a terrorist offence.”
The rare mass shooting has deepened concern about extremism in Poland, following several school stabbings in October that left one woman dead and that officials said were linked to extremist content online.
Interior minister Marcin Kierwiński said the suspect was fascinated with far-right ideologies and held “very radical” and “ultra-nationalistic” views.
The suspect drove into the city’s main square in the heart of the old town, which is usually packed with tourists, at high speed at about 3 p.m. on Saturday.
Wearing military-style fatigues and a bulletproof vest, he began shooting at random as he took what Kraków police spokesperson Katarzyna Cisło described as a “wild ride” around the square.
