Police, wife pleaded for Freeman to give himself up
On Monday, Superintendent Brett Kahan said investigators believed Freeman was still alive and police suspected he had received help from people in the community to evade capture.
Kahan made an extraordinary plea for them to come forward, warning that anyone hiding the fugitive was committing a grave crime.
On Sunday, Freeman’s wife, Amalia Freeman, released a statement through her lawyer, urging her husband to surrender and imploring anyone harbouring him to contact the police.
The officers who were gunned down
They represented two different stages of a career with Victoria Police: the seasoned detective, about to retire, and a senior constable still soaking up valuable on-the-job experience.
One was an outdoorsman who loved his hunting and fishing, and the other an ambitious city-dweller on secondment in north-east Victoria.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart, 34, were killed in an ambush near the town of Porepunkah.
Who is Dezi Freeman?
Dezi Freeman, who was born Desmond Christopher Filby, is a self-described “sovereign citizen” and since the COVID-19 pandemic had developed a public profile within the radicalised anti-government community for his stunts.
His intense hatred for police is well documented in online posts, video footage and court documents. During a hearing last year appealing his suspended driver’s licence, Freeman told a court that “even the sight of a cop or a cop car … it’s like an Auschwitz survivor seeing a Nazi soldier”.
Locals told this masthead that his behaviour became increasingly erratic during the coronavirus pandemic. He refused to wear face masks in shops, voiced his refusal to get vaccinated, and told people about his distaste for government restrictions and lockdowns.
Welcome
Hello, welcome to our live coverage of the shooting in Porepunkah today.
Police say a man has been shot dead in their search for Desmond Freeman after seven months on the run in regional Victoria.
Dezi Freeman, who was born Desmond Filby, allegedly executed two policemen and wounded a third in an ambush attack at a remote farm near Porepunkah on Tuesday, August 26.
Freeman fled into dense bushland following the alleged ambush and had not been seen since.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart were named as the two officers who were killed.
We will bring you updates as we confirm them.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
