A gunman who killed at least six people during a deadly rampage in the Polish city of Kraków on Saturday has died in a hospital, police said Monday.
The country was horrified by the rare mass shooting in the historic main square of the city in the country’s south, which prompted two days of national mourning. Authorities said the attack was likely driven by far-right ideology.
The 24-year-old Polish suspect, named as Michał Oksiński, was shot and injured by police during the attack before being taken to a hospital, according to Polish public broadcaster TVP. There, he underwent multiple surgeries and had been in critical condition.
The mass shooting, which authorities are investigating as a possible terrorist attack, has generated shock and fear in a European nation with exceptionally tight gun laws.
Kraków police said the gunman drove into the city’s main market square, popular with both tourists and locals, and started firing randomly from his car, killing four women and two men. Sixteen others were injured, including two police officers.
Eyewitness Maciej Mizejewski told Reuters he was on his way back from getting a pizza when he heard a barrage of gunfire. He recalled distressed tourists running and asking, “Gun?”
“I said no, impossible,” he said, adding that he ended up hiding as he waited to see what happened. When the sound of gunshots ceased, he came out of hiding.
“I saw four people lying in a pool of blood, being resuscitated by random passers-by,” he told Reuters.
The attacker was wearing military-style clothing and used “military weapons,” Police Deputy Inspector Katarzyna Cisło told Polish news outlet TVN24. More weapons and ammunition were found in his vehicle. However, he had no affiliation with the Polish military, according to TVP.
The bodies of Oksiński’s sister, mother and father were later found at his home in the town of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, about 120 miles northeast of Kraków. Poland’s prosecutor’s office said Sunday that it is “highly likely” the killings were carried out by the same person, but investigations were ongoing.
Eleven firearms were recovered from both sites, the prosecutor’s office said.
Little is known about the gunman, and his motive was not immediately clear. But Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said the shooter was fascinated with far-right ideologies and held “very radical views.”
Emblems on his clothing were being examined by experts, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
The man had a firearms license since March and attended a shooting club with his father, the state broadcaster reported, adding that he was not known to police before Saturday’s shooting.
The attacker fired at least several dozen shots during the lethal rampage, according to Przemysław Nowak, a spokesman for Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office.
Poland, like other European Union countries, has strict rules about acquiring guns, and very few people are allowed to own military-style weapons or carry guns in public. About 411,000 people have gun permits in the country, which has a population of more than 37 million, according to the Associated Press.
An off-duty surgeon who rushed to the scene of the shooting to treat victims of the attack, including a police officer, said he had just finished eating lunch with his family when he heard “what sounded like gunshots.”
Michal Pedziwiatr described being “in the eye of the storm” as he and a friend — also a surgeon –—began providing care to the wounded.
Pedziwiatr told a press conference on Sunday that his friend, Mateusz Wierdak, was a “hero” for saving the life of a police officer who subdued the attacker, after he “applied pressure to the bleeding wound without any protective gear or gloves” and “stuffed gauze pads into the chest cavity,” Reuters reported.
The two wounded police officers, who were praised by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk for saving “many lives,” underwent surgery and remain hospitalized, police said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Charlotte Reck, Christina Zdanowicz, Billy Stockwell and Sana Noor Haq contributed reporting.
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