{"id":363112,"date":"2026-04-04T07:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/363112\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T07:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:15:10","slug":"two-arrested-as-part-of-police-investigation-into-fugitive-dezi-freeman-fatally-shot-on-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/363112\/","title":{"rendered":"Two arrested as part of police investigation into fugitive Dezi Freeman fatally shot on Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dezi<\/p>\n

\nDezi Freeman.
\nPhoto: ABC \/ Supplied\n<\/p>\n

Two people have been arrested as part of a police investigation into the movements of fugitive Dezi Freeman, who was shot dead by police last Monday.<\/a><\/p>\n

Freeman had been on the run since August last year after fatally shooting two police officers while they attempted to carry out a warrant at his Porepunkah property in north-east Victoria.<\/p>\n

The ordeal came to an end after a three-hour stand-off with police at a property in Thologolong, more than 150 kilometres from Freeman’s home.<\/p>\n

On Monday, officers surrounded a shipping container and Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush had earlier said Freeman was “given every opportunity to resolve [the situation] peacefully”.<\/p>\n

Freeman eventually emerged from the container wrapped in a blanket and cradling a gun, which detectives later confirmed was a firearm taken from one of the slain officers.<\/p>\n

The ABC understands up to eight officers from Victoria Police’s Special Operations Group fired their weapons towards Freeman.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\nThe property in Thologolong where police killed Dezi Freeman.
\nPhoto: ABC News\n<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Victoria Police confirmed detectives from Taskforce Summit had arrested a man and a woman as part of their ongoing investigation into the movement of Freeman.<\/p>\n

“The man and woman were arrested about 7am on 4 April at two properties in north-east Victoria,” a police spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“The investigation remains ongoing and, as such, we are not in a position to provide further details at this immediate time.”<\/p>\n

Victoria Police confirmed the pair were associates of Freeman and were not members of his family.<\/p>\n

They will be interviewed by police.<\/p>\n

Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart were killed by Freeman, and a third officer was injured before he disappeared into dense bushland, sparking Australia’s largest-ever tactical police operation.<\/p>\n

A $1 million reward was offered by police for any information leading to the arrest of Freeman, but it is not known whether that has been claimed.<\/p>\n

As part of their investigation, detectives were looking into how Freeman managed to evade officers and whether he had help from anyone.<\/p>\n

-ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dezi Freeman. Photo: ABC \/ Supplied Two people have been arrested as part of a police investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-363112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}