Kraków Shooting Aftermath: Criminologist Explains How Lone Extremist Attacks Can Influence Others
After the 7 November shooting in Kraków, Poland, that killed six people, Aldona Kipāne, an associate professor at Riga Stradiņš University, explains the risk of copycat attacks and signs of radicalisation.
On the afternoon of 7 November, an armed man arrived by car at the main market square of Kraków, a city in southern Poland, and opened fire on passers-by with an AR-15-type firearm. Six people were killed, four women and two men, and another 15 were wounded. One of the dead is a foreign national, as are five of the injured. The attacker later died in hospital. The event has prompted questions about how such attacks may influence other potentially dangerous individuals.
Attacks of this kind are less common in Europe than in the United States. Aldona Kipāne, a criminologist and associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Riga Stradiņš University (RSU), offered an explanation.
Risk of imitation
Kipāne acknowledges that the attack could encourage other lone extremists. She describes this as an imitation mechanism: when an attack receives wide publicity, it can become a behavioural model for people who already hold similar views, hostility towards certain groups or a tendency towards violence. It is especially dangerous when the attacker is glorified or his actions are presented as a success story.
What drives violence
The expert stresses that there is no single decisive cause, but a long interaction of several factors. These may include family conflicts, social isolation, work or financial difficulties, a sense of humiliation and a search for belonging. Mental health disorders can matter, but illness alone does not mean a risk of violence, as most people with such disorders are not violent. In some cases radicalisation is significant, when a person views the world through a narrow ideological lens and justifies violence.
Kipāne cites conflict theory and social control theory. The latter focuses on a person's ties to family, work, education and society; when these weaken, the restraints that deter unlawful behaviour diminish.
Warning signs
Among warning signs the criminologist lists withdrawal, cutting off social contacts, growing intolerance, aggressive rhetoric and justification of violence. More concrete signals are direct threats, interest in a specific target and preparation for an attack. She notes, however, that loneliness alone is no reason to consider someone dangerous. If concrete threats are made, law enforcement should be informed. A lone extremist can also be socially integrated yet ideologically and psychologically isolated.
