The man who opened fire in a public square, killing six people in a suspected far-right terrorist attack in Krakow, Poland, has died, police said early Monday. The man, 24, was shot by police during Saturday’s midday shootout in the Main Market Square, the historic center of Poland’s second-largest city. He died in a hospital after being in critical condition since the attack and having undergone several operations. More than a dozen other people, including two police officers, were injured. The two officers were in “serious” condition, regional official Krzysztof Jan Klęczar said on Sunday. Authorities also found the bodies of the shooter’s sister, mother and father in the family home in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, about 90 miles northeast of Krakow. Very little information has emerged about the shooter, but Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said he used an automatic rifle to carry out the attack and that he “was fascinated by far-right ideologies.” However, officials appeared to backtrack on that characterization amid an increasingly bitter political dispute. The nationalist opposition questioned the grounds on which the motive was established, with Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski saying the claims were a “blatant lie”. National Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Przemyslaw Nowak said at a news conference on Monday that investigators did not yet know what motivated the killer. This, known as the Gadsden flag, was found in his room. The Gadsden flag was first used during the American Revolution in the 18th century. Nowak said the flag was associated with “various meanings related to freedom or rebellion” but was not widely known to be linked to any form of extremism. Interior Ministry spokesperson Karolina Galecka said there were many different emblems on the perpetrator’s clothing that had already been partially examined and interpreted. On Monday, government officials appeared to push back against suggestions of a far-right motive. “Evidence is being collected, but I will not show it or reveal it. I ask for restraint,” Zurek told Radio Zet. Authorities said they believed the attacker killed his family, possibly while they. He slept before heading to Krakow. Seven guns were found in the family home, bringing the total recovered to 11, prosecutors said. Four others, including two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, were found on the attacker or in his car in Krakow. They said dozens, if not hundreds, of shots were fired during the attack. The attacker and his father had permits to carry weapons. The shooter had trained at a local shooting club, which stated in a statement that he “never received training at our club in the areas of dynamic, tactical or combat shooting.” Four women and two men died in the shooting. Three of the women and one of the men were Polish, authorities said. A man from the United Kingdom and a woman from Austria are also among the dead. The two police officers who detained the gunman, in actions that authorities called heroic, remain in the hospital. On Sunday afternoon both were conscious. Among the injured there are five foreigners. They come from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Russia, Germany and Austria. The attack took place in a popular tourist and shopping destination in Krakow. “We literally ran for our lives and managed to hide from the bullets flying around us,” Marie-Ange Collaer, who was visiting with her family from Brussels, wrote on Facebook. Poland had never experienced such a massive shooting. Scenes of blood and bodies strewn across the historic heart of one of its main tourist attractions have shocked a nation that has long considered itself safer than its Western European neighbors who have experienced similar attacks.
