Kraków Gunman Appears to Have Been an LGBT Leftist, According to His Social Media
Poland’s left-leaning Tusk government and international media labeled Kraków gunman Michał Oksiński far-right, but prosecutors found no evidence of a right-wing affiliation, while images circulating on X from deleted Facebook accounts attributed to him appear to show him posing with an LGBT Pride flag and mocking the pope.
On Nov. 7, Michał Oksiński, 24, drove a Subaru onto Kraków’s Main Market Square and opened fire at random, killing six people and wounding 15. Police officers Jakub Kulik and Artur Morański chased him from the square, and both were shot in the exchange of fire. Kulik, hit three times, approached the gunman, fired, and stopped him, then applied a tourniquet to his own arm. The dead included an Austrian woman and a British man. It was Poland’s deadliest shooting since the fall of communism in 1989.
Before driving to Kraków, Oksiński shot his father Janusz, 53, his mother Renata, 52, and his sister Magdalena, 21, a painting student at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, in the family flat in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, according to investigators. Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said Oksiński faced a separate murder charge over those killings, bringing the total number killed to nine. Investigators found two AR-15 rifles, two pistols and several hundred rounds of ammunition in his car and on his person. In all, they seized 11 firearms. Oksiński died in hospital on Nov. 9 after three operations.
Hours after the attack, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński, a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition, told a press conference in Kraków that “everything indicates” the gunman was fascinated by far-right ideologies and held “very, very radical” views. He also described the gunman as holding “ultranationalistic” views, while saying the claim still had to be verified. Tusk attended the briefing and called the shooting an act of terrorism.
After criticism from conservative lawmakers, Kierwiński said on Nov. 8 that the motive was still under investigation. On Nov. 9, prosecutors told reporters there was no evidence tying the gunman to any particular political orientation. Przemysław Nowak, spokesman for the Prokuratura Krajowa (National Prosecutor’s Office), said investigators who searched the gunman’s room found no obvious symbolism associated with either the far right or the far left, and that it was too early to speak of motive or ideology. The only flag on his wall was a Gadsden flag, which Nowak said is not commonly linked to extremism. Asked what Kierwiński based his statement on, Nowak declined to comment.
Kierwiński had presented no evidence for his far-right claim. Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, citing a Kraków police source, reported that officers found material suggesting the gunman may be ultra-left, including photographs of him posing with flags. Polish tabloid Super Express, citing several sources, reported that investigators found no links to far-right parties or extremist organizations, including in his online activity. Kraków Mayor Łukasz Gibała told RMF FM that officers in the uniformed services had called the minister’s suggestion “hasty conclusions.”
Foreign media and the major news agencies repeated Kierwiński’s initial characterization, according to Polish conservative weekly Do Rzeczy. NBC News headlined its report on the “far-right Kraków shooter.” CNN described a “suspect with far-right views.” On Nov. 9, after prosecutors had said they found no evidence of any political motive, the Associated Press still headlined its story “Gun