Every hour, Kraków’s hejnał sounds from the highest tower of St. Mary’s Basilica. The trumpet call stops abruptly, recalling the legend of a 13th-century watchman shot through the throat by a Tatar arrow while warning the city of an attack. On Saturday, Nov. 7, at around 3 pm local time (14:00 GMT), gunshots rang out in the medieval market square across from the tower. A few hundred people began to run in panic toward the basilica, some turning into Floriańska Street.
Minutes earlier, a black Subaru had reportedly entered the square from Sławkowska Street. Its driver, 24-year-old Michał Oksiński, began shooting indiscriminately at passersby with an AR-15-style rifle. Six people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded before police shot and arrested Oksiński near the junction of Dietla and Stradomska streets. The trumpet call was paused overnight in tribute to the victims – the first time it had gone silent since World War II.
Later that day, police learned of three more victims, believed to be Oksiński’s sister and parents. The attacker himself died in a hospital on Monday, Nov. 9, from wounds sustained in the shootout with police. Those killed in the square included four Poles, a British man, and an Austrian woman.
The Kraków attack was highly unusual for Poland. Poland’s gun laws are strict, and the country has the lowest rate of gun ownership in the European Union and among the lowest in the world. Oksiński and his father were both licensed gun owners and belonged to the same shooting club; Michał had two registered firearms, while police seized seven from his father’s home. Mass shootings of this kind are practically without precedent in the country.
What was more typical was the pace with which the attack was conscripted into Poland’s broader political war.