Five killed in shooting at Krakow’s Main Market Square

A man fired at people from a moving car in Krakow’s Main Market Square on Saturday, killing five and wounding around a dozen others before police shot him, authorities said. Police officers were among the wounded.

The shooting happened around 3 p.m. local time in the square, in the center of Poland’s second-largest city. Krakow police said the man fired at people at random as his vehicle moved through the area. He was wounded in a confrontation with officers and taken to a hospital for treatment. Authorities said he was in custody.

A Krakow police spokesperson told the AFP news agency that five people were killed and around a dozen wounded. Officials have not provided a further breakdown of the injuries, including how many police officers were hurt.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the interior minister was keeping him informed. “I am being kept informed by the Minister of the Interior about the situation in Krakow following the tragic shooting,” he wrote on social media. “The police are investigating the background and all the circumstances of the attack.”

Investigators had not publicly established the circumstances behind the shooting. Krakow’s municipal government said in an earlier social media post that it was working to determine the scale of the incident. Other details were not immediately available, CBS News reported.

Tom Rose, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, responded to the shooting in a post on X, according to CBS News. “We are just learning details of the horrific mass shooting in Krakow, a savage and murderous attack that’s shattered the peace of Poland,” he wrote. “America stands with Poland at this dark hour as Poland stands with her beloved citizens of Krakow.”

The Main Market Square is a cultural center of historic Krakow. The city lies about 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of Warsaw, Poland’s capital.