Arab News | Krakow assailant appeared highly skilled, fellow shooting club member says

STARACHOWICE: 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 neighbors 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 licenses 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 behavior, which would have been noticed,” Chyb said.