What happened in Kraków on Saturday?

7. 11. 2026 / Tomasz Oryński

 
There is a lot of noise regarding today’s shooting in Kraków, so I tried my best to compile the digest of Saturday´s event based on official and other reliable sources. Each information below I confirmed in at least two unrelated sources. This is the compilation on what we know so far as for 22:00 Polish time.

Around 15:00 local time a black Subaru entered Kraków market square from Szczepańska street (which, with surrounding areas, is strictly pedestrian zone). The driver, 26 years old Polish citizen was holding an AR-16 automatic assault gun and opened fire to random people walking around and shop vitrines. He drove half the circle around the square then sped up via Grodzka street to Wszystkich Świętych square, still continuing to fire, including at the crowded tram.

The police reacted within 23 seconds from the first call. Apparently there was some political protest at the market square, which was seemingly unrelated. A two police cars immediately gave chase. As seen on the footage published online, the attacker was visibly struggling to drive in a straight line while holding a machine gun, so at the junction of Stradomska and Dietla crashed into another vehicle. The police officers from the chasing police car came out and shoot-out occurred. I saw the footage of this moment from two angles, but we’ll not publish it as it’s pretty drastic.

One of the officers was almost instantly taken down with three gunshots. The attacker got out of his car too, was also shot and fell to the ground. The other police officer was also wounded, but climbed back up his feet and approached the gunmen. The gunmen tried to draw a handgun at him, so the cop continued to shot at him he dropped the gun and raised his hands up. At this moment the cop succumbed to his knees, but still managed to drag the attacker’s rifle away as well as his handgun – which he unloaded – and only then he seemingly attempted to attempt to his own injuries but dropped to the ground. Passers by ran to help the cops while others held the attacker to the ground. The attacker was apprehended in just under 4 minutes since the first shots were reported.

The attacker is 24 years old Polish citizen from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski in central Poland. Some sources reported his full name, but I was unable to confirm it. The police identifies his as Michał O., as per Polish privacy laws. The Facebook profile corresponding to his alleged full name had been removed.

The attacker is said to have radical right wings views. He was wearing military attire, including heavy duty armoured vest and a helmet with badges seemingly depicting radical right symbols, but footage is too grainy for me to establish that for sure. There was plenty of guns found in the car he was driving. The vehicle is registered to his father, who had a gun permit and owned 11 various guns. According to one source the attacker himself also had a permit for a sport gun. A police bomb squad was also seen inspecting the car, but no official confirmation on that – it could be just a standard procedure. The apartment building in which the attacker lived was evacuated and currently the whole market square in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski – where the attacker lived – is closed to public. Donald Tusk just confirmed that two woman and a man – most likely members of the attacker’s family – have been found in the flat.

The media initially reported five dead, this number later increased to 6 as the life of one of the people could not been saved. The victims are said to be four women and two man. At least one of the persons identified so far is a British Citizen, other two are reported to be Polish women. Apart from the terrorist himself (who had undergone two surgeries so far), 15 other people were wounded, including two police officers and a driver of a car in which the attacker crashed. Unconfirmed reports say the latter was a off-duty fireman and when caught in crossfire received a gunshot in his jaw. One of the other injured person was a Portuguese woman. As the shooting begun near the place where horse carriages are waiting for tourists, several coachmen were wounded – two are still fighting for their lives. Two horses were also wounded and an animal charity organized veterinary help to them.

The ministry of defence denies rumours that the attacker was a soldier. There were also rumours claiming that he was not acting alone – which was also denied by the law enforcement. The footage of an alleged second gunman on the roof of one of the churches turned to be just a priest who came out to see what’s going on, although the police instantly reacted until it was established there is no risk.

As usually in Poland, PiS is already trying to score some points while the bodies of the victims are still warm. As there were some protests related to the recent events at the Constitutional Tribunal, some of the pro-PiS publicists suggested this was the real target of the assassin – which is not confirmed, he appears to just shot randomly at people as he was driving.

Tomasz Sakiewicz of pro-PiS TV station Republika had been present at those protests. He came live on his station to claim that it’s all fault of the Donald Tusk government for taking away police officers from Kraków to support their “coup” in Warsaw. All despite standing next to a plain clothes police officer. One of the random passers-by could not stand it and can be heard in the background shouting “how dare you spout such a lies in such a moment, you fucktard”. Yet, PiS propaganda repeats the claim that the police was not present even though they know it’s a lie, as the police was attending their protest – that’s how it was able to react so swiftly. Personally, I find it utterly disgusting in the moment while two heroic policemen were fighting for their lives in hospital after stopping the attacker. Still, as I write those words I see American MAGA pundits perpetuating this lie on Twitter. As per other political parties – apart from pro-Russian fringe movement, which is already trying to accuse Donald Tusk after initially spreading fake news that the attacker was Ukrainian – responded fairly responsible, calling for patience, respect for the victims, prayers for the wounded and refraining from trying to score political points. Amongst those were even Krzysztof Bosak and Sławomir Mentzen from right wing Konfederacja.

The condolences flood from all European leaders. Volodymyr Zelensky was amongst the ones who react early, along with Georgia Meloni, Ursula von der Leyen and US ambassador to Poland. Other cities in Poland reacted by stepping up its’ security or – like Warsaw, for example, placing concrete barriers at the entrances to pedestrian zones and crowded areas. There will be national mourning days on Sunday and Monday.

This is what we know now, for more information we should wait until further investigations are conducted – and, for sake of the wounded – the doctors will be able to update us on their conditions.