As 450 police officers scour rugged and now snow-covered terrain for the experienced bushman, Mr Freeman’s actions have revealed a community fraying over anti-authoritarian ideology taken to its unthinkable extreme.<\/p>\n
The prolonged search has prompted speculation that the heavily armed fugitive might not get out of the bush alive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dezi Bird Freeman allegedly shot dead police officers Neal Thompson and Vadim De Waart, prompting a manhunt.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“After doing what he’s done already, I’d say he will \u2026 try and make himself a martyr,” one former special operations police officer tells the ABC.<\/p>\n
However this story might end, Mr Freeman’s alleged attack on police has the put the focus on a set of fractured beliefs festering not only in the town of Porepunkah, but in communities like it across the country.<\/p>\n
A church-going, obsessive, anti-authoritarian<\/p>\n
According to those who know him, Mr Freeman is a religious man, who also possessed a frightening firearms arsenal.<\/p>\n
He regularly took his kids fishing and taught friends how to dive, but posted online that the “only good cop is a dead cop”<\/a> and urged the “incineration” of police, labelling them the “new Gestapo”.<\/p>\n With his family, he attended mass regularly at a Catholic church, Our Lady of the Snows, perched on a hillside on the outskirts of the nearby tourist town of Bright.<\/p>\n Mr Freeman regularly attended mass at a Catholic church in Bright. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n The local priest, Father Tony Shallue, says that after a statue at the church was vandalised, Mr Freeman was the one who helped to fix it.<\/p>\n “I knew he was a bit anti-authority, but a lot of people are,” says Fr Shallue.<\/p>\n “But I’ve never encountered him as someone who would do that. It’s a shock.”<\/p>\n He’s thinking of cancelling mass on Sunday, as “you’ve got to think of people’s safety”.<\/p>\n Most in the regional community share Fr Shallue’s horror over the alleged murder of two serving police officers.<\/p>\n Many residents of the small town of Porepunkah are shocked by this week’s fatalities.\u00a0 (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n But Mr Freeman’s ideology was not formed in a vacuum.<\/p>\n His views \u2014 though not his alleged actions \u2014 continue to be supported by some in the community who spoke to the ABC, demonstrating the reach of sovereign citizen beliefs in society<\/a>, even in a tiny town like Porepunkah.<\/p>\n At home in the High Country<\/p>\n For Mr Freeman, who was previously known as Desmond Filby<\/a>, the dense hills, mountains and valleys surrounding Porepunkah are home.<\/p>\n According to an old friend who has known him for decades, Mr Freeman struggled to hold down a job and has been on a disability pension since the early 2000s.<\/p>\n He moved around the region, and previously lived at one address down the end of Buffalo Creek Road in nearby Myrtleford.<\/p>\n Locals are keen to point out that the address is just over a ridge through the Mt Buffalo National Park from Porepunkah \u2014 a tough trek for most people but an easy walk for an experienced bushman like Mr Freeman.<\/p>\n The road becomes dirt and ends at a sign proclaiming “no shooting”, telling would-be visitors that beyond the open gate is private property.<\/p>\n A “no shooting” and “private property” sign marks the end of the road nearby Mr Freeman’s address.\u00a0 (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n This area is littered with similar signs warning off unauthorised visitors.<\/p>\n Mr Freeman would tear down signs like these, according to former neighbour Loretta Quinn.<\/p>\n She says he would fly his drone over her land constantly, cut locks off her gates and generally treat her property like “his extended playground”.<\/p>\n A history of disputes with neighbours and local authorities<\/p>\n Mr Freeman believed he had a right to be on her property and would not accept that it was not public land, she says.<\/p>\n The dispute widened to include the local council, according to documents he filed with the Victorian Supreme Court last year.<\/p>\n It eventually got so out of hand Ms Quinn contacted police and took out an intervention order.<\/p>\n She says that didn’t really work, with his extreme views apparently challenging for police to handle.<\/p>\n Dezi Freeman was previously seen wearing a body camera during an alleged argument about property boundaries. (Supplied)<\/p>\n He would also constantly be filming \u2014 always wearing a body camera, she says \u2014 and as his neighbour, she always felt watched.<\/p>\n When the news broke that he was accused of shooting two police officers, Ms Quinn felt a familiar sense of panic.<\/p>\n “I was terrified of him,” she says.<\/p>\n But not everyone was.<\/p>\n Mr Freeman had friends and supporters<\/p>\n Protected from the rain by a well-used Drizabone and a bushman’s hat, Stephen Mallet is an ex-bikie who knows Mr Freeman from a Facebook group dedicated to preparing for the apocalypse.<\/p>\n Mr Mallet makes and sells wooden knives in a local shop at Bright, which is how the ABC managed to get in touch.<\/p>\n Walking alongside his two wolfhounds, Georgie Whitesocks and Tucker Goldenheart, Mr Mallet also wants to make it clear he does not personally identify as a sovereign citizen \u2014 a term he doesn’t like.<\/p>\n Stephen Mallett knew Mr Freeman from a Facebook group dedicated to apocalypse preparation. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n “‘Sovereign citizen’, they’re using that as a name now to vilify people,” he says.<\/p>\n While it is difficult to define the exact views held by people who associate with sovereign citizen beliefs, there is a tendency to reject widely accepted laws and government power<\/a>.<\/p>\n No matter how he identifies, Mr Mallet admits he has a similar way of thinking to people like Mr Freeman.<\/p>\n “The nutters are going to jump on this, but a nutter he wasn’t,” he says.<\/p>\n Previous run-ins with local police<\/p>\n From the outset, Mr Mallet says Mr Freeman did the wrong thing by allegedly killing two officers. But he claims Mr Freeman is the victim of a long campaign of persecution at the hands of Victoria Police.<\/p>\n “They were going for him, for sure,” he says.<\/p>\n The examples Mr Mallet gives for Mr Freeman’s persecution includes his arrest outside the Myrtleford courthouse<\/a> during a 2021 demonstration following a failed private prosecution of then-premier Daniel Andrews for treason and fraud.<\/p>\n Mr Mallett says Mr Freeman is the victim of a long campaign of persecution at the hands of Victoria Police. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)<\/p>\n In documents filed with the court, a Bright chiropractor who brought the charges said that Mr Andrews had committed treason by removing the queen’s name from official documents and replacing it with the state of Victoria.<\/p>\n The court hearing descended into chaos with participants, who joined by video link, showing pictures of their chickens and doctored images of Mr Andrews as a dictator, according to multiple media reports.<\/p>\n According to those who know Mr Freeman, the episode was a key moment that solidified his attitude towards police and the authority of the state.<\/p>\n It was followed by police suspending Mr Freeman’s drivers license after he was stopped for speeding and refused to take a drug test, leading to the loss of two of his cars, Mr Mallet says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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