Australian police on Wednesday named a suspect in the fatal shooting of two police officers in the country's remote southeast, as a massive manhunt for the gunman continues.
The suspect, identified as 56-year-old Dezi Bird Freeman, is heavily armed and experienced in wilderness survival skills, police said. They urged people to stay indoors.
Freeman killed a detective and a senior constable on Tuesday when 10 armed police officers attempted to search his property in Porepunkah, located around 320 kilometres northeast of Melbourne.
Another detective was shot and suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The officers were “murdered in cold blood,” Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of Police Mike Bush said. Freeman fled alone and on foot into the surrounding forest following the attack.
Public buildings and the nearby airfield were closed on Tuesday as police hunted for the suspect. A school with just over 100 students was placed in lockdown for hours before students were allowed to go home.
Bush admitted that the suspect's knowledge of outdoor survival skills posed a “challenge” to authorities.
The whereabouts of Freeman’s wife and two children were initially unknown, but they had visited a police station and spoken to officers late on Tuesday night, he added.
Bush said it was “too soon to say” if the attack on the officers was ideologically motivated.
Local media reported that Freeman, a known conspiracy theorist, espoused beliefs associated with the so-called "sovereign citizens" movement, whose members utilise debunked legal theories to reject government authority.
They cited a video published online in 2021 in which Freeman can be seen attempting to arrest a magistrate and police officers while representing himself in a hearing.
In a 2024 finding from Victoria's Supreme Court — where Freeman tried to challenge a lengthy suspension of his driver's license — a judge wrote the man had “a history of unpleasant encounters with police officers” whom he referred to in his submissions to the court as “Nazis” and “terrorist thugs”.
Freeman — born Desmond Christopher Filby — had a sudden change in behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reports, when he became a vocal critic of the government's emergency measures.
In 2021, Freeman was part of an attempt to place the Victoria state PM Daniel Andrews on trial for treason.
