A gunman firing at random from a car killed six people and wounded 15 in Krakow's Main Market Square on Saturday afternoon, police said, striking the center of Poland's second-largest city and one of its biggest tourist draws.
Police said the man drove onto the square around 3 p.m. and opened fire from inside the vehicle. Four women and two men died. The initial police count stood at five dead and about a dozen hurt before officers revised it upward.
Officers shot and wounded the suspect during a gunfight a short distance from where the attack began, then detained him and took him to a hospital. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said two police officers were struck by gunfire, one of them seriously.
Katarzyna Cisło, a Krakow police spokesperson, said the attacker, a Polish citizen, was dressed in military-style fatigues and carried a military-type long gun. Police found many more weapons and ammunition in his car. Cisło said he acted alone and that the public is no longer in danger.
The city's municipal transport company said a tram driver reported at about 3 p.m. that a man in a moving car had shot at his vehicle near the square, shattering the window of the driver's cabin. Authorities at first told people nearby to move to a safe place.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the shooting tragic and said police were looking into its background and every circumstance surrounding it, adding that the interior minister was keeping him briefed. President Karol Nawrocki expressed sympathy for the dead, the injured and their relatives.
Tom Rose, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, condemned the attack as savage and murderous and said America stands with Poland.
Such attacks are rare in Poland, though three school assaults in the central province of Mazovia over four days in mid-October left one person dead and many hurt, children among them. Roughly 411,000 Poles hold gun permits in a nation of 37 million, and interest in owning firearms has been growing.
Krakow, home to more than 800,000 people, sits about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Warsaw. Around 15 million tourists visit each year, most of them passing through the Main Square.
