Fugitive alleged cop killer Dezi Freeman has been shot dead by police in a small town in northeast Victoria after a seven-month manhunt.
Victoria Police said Freeman, a father-of two also known as Desmond Filby, was shot dead on a rural property in Walwa just before 8.30am on Monday, and no police officers were injured.
Freeman was holed up in a building described as a cross between a shipping container and a “long caravan” in the tiny town, which is on the border of NSW and about 190km northeast of Porepunkah, where he alleged shot dead two police officers on August 26 last year.
Police tracked him down after receiving a tip-off from “someone close to him”, and tried to negotiate with him before the shooting, but he refused to surrender. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said.
“There was an appeal to encourage the person to come out. We’re examining the sequence of events,” Chief Commissioner Bush said.
“There was an opportunity for him to surrender peacefully, which he did not.
“We strongly believe, yet to be confirmed, that he was armed.”
Commissioner Bush also said there had been no confirmed sightings of Freeman before today, and that there was no one else on the property at the time.
Freeman, an experienced bushman and well-known “sovereign citizen”, vanished after allegedly gunning down Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart, 35, when they tried to arrest him in his caravan.
A third officer was also shot during the incident but survived.
Police said at the time the officers were executing a search warrant as part of an investigation by the Wangaratta Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team.
The subsequent manhunt involved hundreds of officers who combed the bushland around Mount Buffalo, and by October had already cost taxpayers $100 million.
Police in September offered a $1 million reward for information on Freeman’s whereabouts leading to his arrest, the largest-ever bounty offered in the state’s history.
“The State Coroner will attend the scene and the investigation that will be oversighted by Professional Standards Command, as per standard process for a police shooting,” police said in a statement after he was shot dead.
Freeman was known to police, banned from owning firearms, and had a history of clashing with the courts, having once attempted to “arrest” a magistrate during a hearing in Wangaratta.
But he also had the sympathy of some locals in the Porepunkah region who believed he had been the target of police persecution and harassment.
Header image: Left, right, Dezi Freeman (supplied).
