Massacre in Kraków: 9 dead – the 24-year-old shot his sleeping family
Michał Oziński shot his parents and sister before opening fire in the Central Market Square. A total of 9 dead and 16 injured.
Nine dead in Kraków: the attacker had first executed his family
According to Newsit.gr, the toll from the armed attack in Kraków stands at nine dead and 16 injured, including two police officers. The six confirmed victims of the attack in the Central Market Square are added to the three relatives whom the 24-year-old Polish national Michał Oziński had already executed at the family home.
The bodies of the three family members — the 53-year-old father, 52-year-old mother and 21-year-old sister — were found in their beds in an apartment in the city of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, approximately 200 kilometres from Kraków. Initial assessments by investigators indicate that each victim sustained two gunshots to the head. Neighbours heard nothing — the attacker is reported to have used a silencer.
Particularly tragic is the case of his sister, who lived and studied in Kraków at the "Jan Matejko" Academy of Fine Arts. She had returned to the family home in Ostrowiec for the weekend in order to visit her parents.
After killing his family, Oziński drove — in his father's car — to the Central Market Square of Kraków and opened fire on random passers-by from a black Subaru. Police who rushed to the scene immobilised him with gunfire. He underwent surgery at a local hospital and his condition is reported as stable.
Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński stated that preliminary findings suggest that Oziński acted alone, was deeply influenced by far-right ideologies and held "very radical views". Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz categorically denied any connection with the armed forces, confirming that the suspect was never a member of the Polish Armed Forces or the Territorial Defence Forces (WOT).
Oziński, from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, had trained as an engineer and was studying at a military cadet school. He held a legal firearms licence for two firearms and trained at a local shooting club in Starachowice. His father legally owned 11 firearms. Neither of the two had a criminal record.
His neighbours described him as a quiet man who greeted everyone and had never caused any problems. Others stated that they had not observed any behaviour that would have led them to suspect anything of the sort.
Particular attention was drawn to the emblem sewn onto his bulletproof vest. Photographs secured by the authorities and the Polish news network Onet confirm that it was the emblem of pirate Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard — an 18th-century pirate flag depicting a skeleton with horns holding an hourglass and aiming with a spear at a bleeding heart.
This particular symbol has been popular for years among military personnel, police and airsoft players. According to the Daily Telegraph, in contemporary culture it is used to express the philosophy of "take no prisoners" — absolute brutality without mercy.
Online, speculation circulated linking the symbol to the American tactical group Forward Observations Group (FOG), which operates in Ukraine and uses a modified version of it as a logo. However, the difference is easily distinguishable: the FOG figure has a goat's head and holds an MP7 submachine gun instead of an hourglass, whilst the bleeding heart has been replaced with a red letter "F". The emblem worn by Oziński was the authentic pirate flag, not that of the FOG.
Polish authorities are investigating the motives for the attack, focusing on the attacker's far-right ideology and his fixation with tactical combat and weapons.
Source: Newsit.gr