source : the age
- Follow our live coverage of this developing story here.
This was not a manhunt that ended in a high-speed chase. It was a confrontation that arrived with a quiet stealth, sprung from a tip-off, two days of bated breath under police surveillance, and ending in a shootout that would leave Dezi Freeman dead – wrapped in a doona – on the terrain that had for months concealed him.
In an abrupt conclusion to Australia’s most intensive manhunt, Freeman emerged from his hideout – a makeshift structure described as half shipping container, half caravan – cloaked in the bedding cover. He was surrounded by police. But when he dropped the doona, he revealed his own white-knuckle grip on a gun. Police now suspect it was the same gun owned by one of the police officers he killed on August 26, seven months ago.
For more than 200 days, Freeman was a ghost in the bush, eluding police on his own stomping ground, leaving many in the force to believe he’d died that day he slew two officers, with a bullet to his own head.
Instead, Freeman was killed on Monday about 8.30am – three hours after police asked him to surrender. Police are investigating whether he was holding the same gun he stole from officers months ago, but offered scant detail about how that final stand-off with Freeman near the border with New South Wales spiralled into a shoot-out.
The property where Freeman was holed up sits on the edge of an area that was ravaged in early January by the bushfires around Walwa, a nearby town.
Police were last week tipped off about Freeman hiding near Walwa, 200 kilometres north-east from Porepunkah, according to police sources unauthorised to speak on the record.
Satellite imagery shows the sprawling property was studded with multiple buildings, among them two containers, a caravan and several disused trucks and cars.
At a packed press conference in Melbourne on Monday detailing “Operation Summit”, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush told reporters that police still had to complete the formal identification process before confirming Freeman had been killed but: “We believe it’s Dezi”.
“Everything I know at this moment tells me the shooting was justified”, Bush said, flanked by the four leading detectives in the case. “There was an opportunity for him to surrender peacefully, which he did not.”
The police chief would not confirm if a tip-off from Freeman’s associates helped officers zero in on the property, but said detectives were still investigating connections between the property near Walwa and Freeman, and how long he had been staying there.
“We’re very keen to learn who if any, but I’m sure some, assisted him in getting away from Porepunkah to where he was located… and who supported him in its escapade,” Bush said. “If anyone was complicit, they will be held to account.”
But no one else had been in “the immediate vicinity” during the stand-off at the property on Monday and no one had been charged as investigators worked with the coroner to set up a crime scene at the remote hideout.
“It would be very difficult for him to get to where he was, if that is, in fact, him, without assistance,” Bush added.
Earlier, in a brief statement, police confirmed a man was fatally shot by officers about 8.30am. “No police officers were injured during the incident,” the statement read.
“The state coroner will attend the scene and the investigation will be oversighted by Professional Standards Command, as per standard process for a police shooting.”
Freeman was last seen in the Mount Buffalo area after the shooting deaths of Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 35, and Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, at a rural property in Porepunkah on August 26 last year. A group of 10 officers had been serving Freeman with a warrant at the time, and a third officer was also injured in the shootings.
On Monday, the families of the two slain officers were among the first to learn of Freeman’s death.
De Waart-Hottart’s parents, who live in Belgium, are currently in Melbourne after attending a ceremony last week which marked the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Russell Street bombing, in which policewoman Angela Taylor was killed.
Specialist police units had scoured thousands of kilometres of the alpine country, including with cadaver dogs, in the hunt for Freeman. Bush said more than 2000 tips from the public had flooded in, and previously there had been “a lot to suggest that Freeman had taken his own life”.
But then suddenly a new break in the case took them hundreds of kilometres away to the edge of north-eastern Victoria.
“Our members said they would find him. They did,” Police Association of Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt said, following news of the shooting.
Gatt said Freeman’s death did not lessen the trauma he had caused or “give back the futures that were callously stolen”, but it represented a step forward.
“Today, we won’t reflect on the loss of a coward,” he said. “We will remember the courage and bravery of our fallen members and every officer that has doggedly pursued this outcome for the community.
“Days like today offer a sobering reminder that policing happens while you sleep, when the media spotlight on an investigation dims and when everything seems lost and forgotten.”
‘Just bear in mind that to you’s [sic] my father was a cop killer, but to me that’s still my father.’A person identifying himself as Koah Freeman, Dezi Freeman’s eldest son
The news has been greeted with relief by rank and file officers. One veteran detective told this masthead: “I think today is a good day, the sun is shining and Victoria Police will continue to serve the public the way those fallen officers were trying to do.”
For others, his death was met with dismay.
A person who has identified himself as Koah Freeman, Freeman’s eldest son, has taken to a Bright Facebook group to denounce locals “celebrating” the death online.
“I am the eldest son of the Freeman family. And I am not here to defend my father’s actions because I know what he did was wrong,” he posted.
“I hope you all realise that I am looking at everything you’s [sic] are saying, and that you all realise how that is making me feel.”
Koah said he understood people would have thoughts “about the situation that has been happening”, but urged people to remember that Freeman had a family too.
“Just bear in mind that to you’s [sic] my father was a cop killer, but to me that’s still my father who raised me to be the man I am today. And for the people who know me well they know exactly what I’m talking about,” he wrote.
“This is news that I’ll be grieving about while some of you disgusting humans celebrate online for me to watch.”
This masthead was unable to independently verify that the account belongs to Freeman’s son.
With Erin Pearson
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