Porepunkah police shooting as it happened: Accused gunman remains on run as slain officers named

• Dezi Freeman, 56, remains on the run after allegedly shooting dead two police officers and injuring another at a rural property in Porepunkah, about 300 kilometres north-east of Melbourne on Tuesday morning.
• The two killed police have been named as Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart, while the injured officer is recovering in Melbourne’s Alfred hospital after undergoing surgery. Both fallen officers have been remembered fondly by their colleagues.
• Freeman fled into dense bushland following the alleged ambush, and police have now established a no-fly zone over the area as they continue to look for him.
• Several loud popping and banging noises were heard at the Porepunkah property where the police operation to find Freeman is underway. A police helicopter spent much of the afternoon centred on that area. Ambulances and special operations police left the property shortly before 7pm.
• The message to residents is to remain indoors and avoid unnecessary travel.
• Despite earlier reports of a hostage situation, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush gave an update at 8.30am, saying this was not the case. Freeman’s partner and children went to a police station on Tuesday night and have been interviewed.
• Police say Freeman is an experienced bushman and concede that he knows the area better than they do. He is believed to be armed with multiple powerful guns, after officers found no firearms at the property after the shooting.

Dr Josh Roose, a Deakin University expert on political violence, said on Tuesday that the movement has a long history of violence directed at law enforcement, adding that followers believe it is vital to “arm themselves to resist any form of authority”.

While many followers claim to be non-violent, advocating violence only as a “last resort” or only necessary in the form of “self-defence”, the AFP warns that these groups may still be dangerous.

“The potential for violence, fixation and harassment exists within these groups,” the briefing paper says, also pointing to a “propensity for fixation on high office holders and public figures, as well as some within the movement urging violence”.

Often, the rhetoric of sovereign citizens leans on American revolutionary language and concepts of patriotism.

Kristina Murphy, a professor of criminology at Queensland’s Griffith University, says traffic stops are a major flashpoint. Adherents often have “reactive personality traits” and dislike being told what to do, she says, and their distrust of authority has frequently been triggered by financial difficulties or another life event.

Dezi Freeman took his fight over a simple speeding fine all the way to the Supreme Court, claiming he had been harassed by police for a decade and showcasing a hatred for the force that would allegedly lead him five years later to kill.

While trying to clear his name, Freeman labelled officers “frigging Nazis”, “Gestapo” and “terrorist thugs”.

The hearings provide a snapshot of a troubled life. Charges for speeding and refusing a roadside drug test in 2020 led to removal of his gun licence. He told a court he lived in a van with his family while relying on Centrelink payments.

“I felt threatened and preyed upon ... even the sight of a cop or a cop car ... it’s like an Auschwitz survivor seeing a Nazi soldier. What’s worse than a swastika is the inverted pentagram, the satanic symbol that they wear, and they behave like it as well,” he told a judge.

Freeman, also known as Desmond Filby, bounced around almost every level of the justice system in the years before he is alleged to have this week killed Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart, 35, and injured a third officer.

Read about his run-ins with police here.

Public buildings in Melbourne have turned blue in tributes to police officers Vadim de Waart and Neal Thompson, who were allegedly killed by Dezi Freeman.

“It’s a way, a very physical way, that we can say to the men and women of Victoria Police we stand with you, we support you, we care for you, we love you,” Premier Jacinta Allan said in announcing the homage earlier today.

“Particularly in this time of grief, and particularly to the broader Victorian community, now is the time for unity. Now is the time to join together and show support not just for the Victoria Police, to those emergency services, but to each other.”

The Victorian High Country is the scene of an intense hunt for a man accused of shooting and killing two police officers, and injuring a third.

The man Victoria Police say they are searching for is Desmond Christopher Filby, aka Dezi Freeman, a radicalised conspiracy theorist, and self-described “sovereign citizen”, who espoused hatred for police.

But what is a sovereign citizen, and how widespread is the movement in Australia?

On The Morning Edition, associate professor Dr Joshua Roose explains whether the sovereign citizen movement has been underestimated.

A convoy of special operations police vehicles have just driven out of the police road block, followed by several MICA ambulances with no sirens or lights flashing.

Police remain at the property.