A heroic Polish police officer and former paratrooper named Jakub Kulik is fighting for his life after taking out a mass shooter who killed six people in the historic downtown square in Krakow, Poland. The suspect’s name has been given as only Michał O by some sites and Michał Oksiński by others.
A dramatic and viral video shows the officer falling to his knees after disabling the gunman, and then onto his back. You can see it here. Be forewarned that it’s disturbing. The officer is being hailed as a hero; the scene was so shocking that a person in the video questions whether it was a movie. Sadly, it was not. Photos show that surgeons who were having lunch nearby rush to help the wounded officer. A photo also showed the heroic officer on his knees.
See Jakub Kulik’s police photo.
He is “fighting for his life,” and Poland’s leaders are asking people to donate blood to Kulik, according to The New York Post. The gunman, who was 24, murdered his parents and sisters before opening fire randomly at the square, police believe. According to The Post, two officers approached him after he opened fire in Krakow’s tourist-filled market square. The second officer is named Artur Morański.
“I have just applied for the urgent conferral of the title of Honorary Citizen of the Royal Capital City of Kraków on two police officers—Artur Morański and Jakub Kulik—who heroically subdued a murderer yesterday, saving the lives of others,” Krakow’s mayor, Lukasz Gibala, wrote on X. Officials have called the mass shooting a “terror attack,” and Poland declared days of national mourning.
The second officer is also being hailed as a hero. “Senior Constable Jakub Kulik and Senior Constable Artur Morański are true heroes,” stated Prime Minister Donald Tusk to Rzeczpospolita, which reported that both officers were fairly new to the force.
“One of our fellow firefighters is in urgent need of blood following the shooting in Krakow,” the Leszczyny Volunteer Fire Department said, according to Radio Bielsko. Another video shows the moment the suspect went down.
Jakub Kulik Is a Former Polish Paratrooper Who Has Worked as a Volunteer Firefighter
Kulik is a a former paratrooper and volunteer firefighter, and he and the other officer are credited with saving additional lives; in addition to the six people he killed, the masked suspect, who was wearing tactical gear, injured another 16 people, according to TVP World.
Kulik comes from the southern Polish city of Bielsko-Biała, and he “served in the 18th Bielsko Airborne Battalion, a unit of Poland’s 6th Airborne Brigade. He was also a member of Bielsko-Biała’s volunteer fire service,” that site reported.
The Polish-language site Radio Bielsko interviewed Kulik’s former teacher, who said, “He was very active and involved in the life of the class and school. He was very friendly. I remember he was also involved in the activities of the Volunteer Fire Brigade. He kept saying something was going on in the guard,” the teacher recalled.”
The Heroic Officers Were Armed With Sidearms & Were Both Shot
The Polish-language site Rzeczpospolita wrote that the officers were engaged in an “unequal struggle” with the gunman, who had an AR-15. “They were armed only with sidearms and—unlike Michał O.—wore no bulletproof vests. Both officers were shot. One of them ended up on the operating table with a punctured lung (he sustained three gunshot wounds),” the site reported.
Of the suspect, that site noted, “In the trunk, he had a much larger quantity of weapons, which, as it later turned out, belonged to his father. They were registered as sporting firearms. Both men were passionate about shooting sports.”
According to The Guardian, the suspect drove at high speeds into the old square which normally has many tourists. “Wearing military-style fatigues and a bulletproof vest, he started shooting at random as he took what the Kraków police spokesperson Katarzyna Cisło described as a ‘wild ride’ around the square,” The Guardian reported, adding that he adhered to “very radical” and “ultra-nationalistic” views. The suspect was injured and is in the hospital.
The victims included four women and two men, including a British citizen and woman from Austria, The Guardian reported.
Krakow, Poland Mass Shooting: Dramatic Video Shows Heroic Police Officer Jakub Kulik Stopping Gunman