The key facts

  • Six people were killed and 15 wounded in the November 7 shooting in Kraków
  • The attacker Michał Oksiński died in hospital on November 9; the bodies of his parents and sister were found in his home
  • The shooter was stopped by two police officers with just over two years of service

Chronicle of the attack

On November 7, an armed criminal with a rifle opened fire on people on the Main Square (Rynek) in central Kraków. Six people were killed and 15 were wounded. The attacker then drove on and fired at a tram; police caught up with him at an intersection about a kilometer from the square, where he crashed into another car, after which a gunfight began. Kun.uz reports this citing a briefing by the head of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Krzysztof Klęczar.

Six minutes from the call to neutralization

According to Klęczar, only six minutes passed from the first report to the police until the attacker was neutralized. Municipal guards arrived at the square two minutes after the alert, and police patrols appeared another minute later. Later, four more firearms and a large amount of ammunition were found in the criminal's car.

Two police officers stopped the shooter

The attacker was stopped by patrol officers — 27-year-old Artur Morański and 24-year-old Jakub Kulik. Both had served in the police for just over two years and were armed only with pistols, yet they engaged in a gunfight with the rifle-armed criminal. They managed to wound him, while they themselves were seriously injured. In footage filmed by bystanders, the wounded Kulik can be seen getting up several times and firing to stop the attacker. According to a source at the police quoted by the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, if the shooter had not been stopped in time, 'the death toll could have been horrifically high.' The city authorities of Kraków announced that the officers would be granted honorary citizenship of the city; the day after the gunfight, both officers regained consciousness.

The attacker's fate

The attacker, whom the publication identifies as Michał Oksiński, was seriously wounded in the shootout with the patrol officers and died in hospital on the morning of November 9. Later, the bodies of his mother, father and sister, whom he had killed, were found in his home. The motives for the attack are not disclosed in available publications; the investigation is ongoing.