Krakow assailant appeared highly skilled, fellow shooting club member says


A view inside the shooting range of the Swit Starachowice sports club, where the shooter who killed several people in Krakow was a member, in Starachowice, Poland, November 8, 2026. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

STARACHOWICE, ⁠Poland, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The young gunman who killed six people in central Krakow on ⁠Saturday in Poland's unprecedented mass shooting appeared to be highly skilled in military-style marksmanship, ‌the spokesperson for his sports shooting club said on Sunday.

"I wouldn't know how to shoot like that," Adam Chyb, 55, a long-time gun shooter and member of the Swit Starachowice club located some 175 km (109 miles) northeast of Krakow, told ​Reuters.

"I'm a sports shooter," Chyb said. "Shooting in motion, while running, ⁠not to mention while driving a car ... ⁠with one hand steering and firing with another from an AR-style gun ... is an entirely different ⁠category."

"There ‌is recoil, blast, in a small metal can such as a car ... What can I say ... I'm not an expert in military marksmanship, I couldn't do it ... This is what ⁠the military and the police teach. We have absolutely nothing ​to do with this field."

The ‌killing has shocked Poland, where many people have long felt safer than in the country's ⁠western European neighbours ​that have witnessed similar attacks in recent years.

The government said the assailant may have been inspired by far-right ideology, without providing further details, and nationalist opposition politicians disputed such claims.

Very little has come out about the ⁠shooter, a 24-year-old from Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, a town of just ​under 60,000 in southeastern Poland.

Authorities have said his family, including the assailant, had licences for a total of 11 firearms. Gun ownership is relatively low in Poland compared with its European allies, but has ⁠been rising since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022.

Chyb said the assailant, who has not been officially named, had joined the Swit Starachowice club in 2022 and attended it a handful of times, including twice this year and always in the company of his father. His father was ​a long-time member.

The bodies of his father, mother and sister were ⁠found in their family home on Saturday, and officials say they were also likely killed by the ​same assailant as was involved in the shooting in Krakow.

"He never ‌came to the club in any kind of ​military uniform, did not exhibit any negative behaviour, which would have been noticed," Chyb said.

(Reporting by Karol Badohal in Warsaw and Kacper Pempel in Starachowice; Editing by Chris Reese)

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