Parents, sister of far-right Kraków shooter found dead in family home

Three bodies found in the home of the 24-year-old shooter in Saturday’s rampage in the heart of Kraków, Poland, belonged to the gunman’s family, police said.

Investigators are looking at the deaths of the shooter’s parents and sister as they unravel events surrounding the random violence in the Polish city’s historic center, Main Market Square, around 3 p.m. Saturday.

The relatives, who lived about 90 miles from Kraków, most likely died from gunshot wounds, according to police.

Authorities said the shooter, who survived a shootout with police and remains in the hospital, wore a bulletproof vest.

World leaders paid tribute to victims, and Poland declared two national days of mourning after the shooter, motivated by far-right ideologies killed six people in Kraków in what the country’s defense minister characterized as a “terror attack.”

The dead are a man from the United Kingdom, a woman from Austria and four Polish nationals, according to regional official Krzysztof Jan Klęczar. The injured include visitors from Britain, Portugal, Russia, Germany and Austria, according to The Associated Press.

St. Mary’s Basilica in the square paused its hourly trumpet call overnight in honor of the victims. It was the first time the historic church had done so since World War II.

The gunman, whom officials described as having “ultranationalistic” beliefs, is reported to have opened fire in Kraków’s Main Market Square. The midday attack was the country’s deadliest shooting in decades, while a policeman who confronted the gunman is in critical condition.

The suspect is being investigated on suspicion of murder in connection, Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said Sunday on X, adding that he “acted with the aim of seriously intimidating a large number of people, making this a terrorist offence.”

The same suspect faces a separate murder charge over killings in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyskie, Żurek said, a town 93 miles northeast of Kraków, where three of his relatives were found dead in his home.

“Establishing all the circumstances of these tragic events, determining the full sequence of the perpetrator’s actions and securing evidence are currently the priorities of the investigation,” which is being led by terror offense specialists within the prosecutor’s office, he said.

Kraków prosecutor Eryk Stasielak said that the shooter was in critical condition and that victim autopsies are set to start Monday, according to PAP, a Polish news service.

“Tomorrow we will be deciding the fate of the attacker, if he survives, because he remains in critical condition,” Stasielak said, according to a translation of the report.

Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński did not name the suspect, identifying him only as a Polish national in his mid-20s from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyskie. He used an automatic rifle, Kierwiński said Saturday, describing him as having “ultranationalistic” views.

“Everything indicates he was fascinated by far-right ideologies,” he said.

The suspect was shot by police at the scene and taken to the hospital around 3 p.m.

A man and two women later found dead in an apartment are believed to be the suspect’s parents and sister, according to Andrzej Fijołek, deputy inspector of Police National Headquarters.

The Interior Ministry announced two national days of mourning Sunday and Monday.

Pope Leo XIV expressed his sadness in a message to the archbishop of Kraków on Sunday. The pope “implores the gift of Christian hope for the families overwhelmed by grief and joins with all those experiencing these days of mourning,” the message read, according to a translation.

Żurek, the justice minister, said early Sunday on social media that Senior Constable Jakub Kulik “is fighting for his life in hospital” after he confronted the shooter.

“One of his lungs is not functioning, and he needs every drop of blood he can get,” he posted on X.

Police later said blood banks in Kraków were full and thanked those who donated.

“Senior constable Jakub Kulik and senior constable Artur Moranski are true heroes,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, referring to both officers.

Klęczar said that without “the efficient and selfless intervention” of the officers, “the number of victims could have been significantly higher.”

“The condition of the two police officers remains serious,” Klęczar said Sunday. Kierwiński later said the two men had been brought out of comas.

Video on social media shows what appears to be an injured police officer firing at the gunman before he drops to his knees and rolls over onto his back. The officer, who did not appear to have backup nearby, struggles to reload his firearm and appears to be clutching his right arm.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the U.K. government “deeply mourns the British national and other victims” who died.

“The U.K. stands resolutely in solidarity with the people of Poland,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said Saturday that his country “stands in solidarity” with neighboring Poland, calling the shooting a “shocking crime.”

The U.S. State Department said it was not aware of any American citizens harmed in the violence.

“The profound depth of Poland’s shock at the horror of yesterday’s appalling mass murder in Krakow is truly remarkable to behold,” the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Tom Rose, said in a post on X.

Noting how rare the incident was in an “extraordinarily safe” country like Poland, he added, “There’s something profoundly precious about being in a country where such evil remains so foreign to everyday life, where an entire nation recoils in horror at the mere thought of it, and where the depth of grief reveals the true goodness of its people.”

Part of Main Market Square in Kraków and surrounding streets reopened Sunday, but cordons remain while police carry out forensic work, the city has said in a statement.

Several makeshift memorials with flowers and candles appeared across the city Sunday.

Tourists caught up in attack

Many of those caught up in the attack were tourists visiting the city.

Taylor Dorfmeister, 21, a student from Santa Cruz, California, studying in Italy who was visiting Poland, was in the square with his roommate when gunfire erupted. Dorfmeister said there was a delay before the crowd reacted and then everyone began to flee. He said he took shelter in a building.

“We ran up the stairs in the building to hide, and it was a dead end, which is when I was the most terrified, since the gunshots were [loud] and near,” Dorfmeister told NBC News.

It sounded to Dorfmeister like the gunfire was coming from the first floor of the building where he hid. He was “fully prepared for the worst” based on the proximity of the noise, he said.

“This is it,” Dorfmeister thought. “Like, there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”

Marie-Ange Collaer was visiting with her family from Brussels.

“We literally ran for our lives and managed to hide from the bullets flying around,” she wrote on Facebook. “Lying on the floor in a shop like in a bad police movie whilst you hear bullets everywhere.”

Collaer said that her family were shaky and “quite in shock” after they returned to their hotel and that everyone was grateful to be alive.

“We saw a few that did not make it, true horror,” she wrote.

U.K. resident Neil Thaxton and his wife, Nicky, also survived the attack.

“We had just walked through the main square and heard the gunshots,” Thaxton wrote on Facebook. “We thought it was fireworks then people started running, we went into a gift shop and the staff took us in the back of the shop and locked the doors and turned the lights off.”

The Associated Press, Michael Fiorentino and Corky Siemaszko contributed.