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Dezi Freeman, a 56-year-old so-called “sovereign citizen” who killed two police officers and injured another in the Victorian town of Porepunkah in August, has been shot dead by police.

Police said a man was shot at 8.30am on Monday, 30 March, seven months after Freeman killed two police officers and injured another at the town of Porepunkah in north-east Victoria.

Here’s what we know so far

  • Police shot a man at 8.30am on Monday morning on a rural property, reportedly near Walwa in northeast Victoria, following a three-hour stand-off.

  • Walwa is about 100km from Porepunkah.

  • Victorian police commissioner Mike Bush would not confirm the identity of the man, saying the Victorian coroner was en route to conduct a formal identification process. But he said the shooting brought to a close Operation Summit, the operation to find Freeman.

  • Bush said police “strongly believe” the man shot on Monday was armed, but that was yet to be confirmed. He said the shooting would be subject to both a coronial investigation and an investigation by police Professional Standards Command, but added “everything I know at this point tells me that this shooting was justified”.

  • He said the man, believed to be Freeman, had been in a building which looked like “a cross between a [shipping] container and very long caravan”. He said police made “an appeal to encourage the person to come out” and added: “There was an opportunity for him to surrender peacefully which he did not.”

  • Asked if the man was armed when he exited the structure, Bush said “that is our – my – understanding at this stage”, but that the exact details would be subject to further investigation. He also would not confirm if the man fired any shots before being fatally shot by police.

  • There was no one else on the property at the time.

  • Bush would not confirm the location of the standoff but said police were “very keen to learn who, if any, but I’m sure some, actually assisted him in getting away from Porepunkah to where he was located”. Anyone who did help him would be held to account, he said.

  • Police had offered a $1m reward for information leading to the location of Freeman. Asked on Monday if anyone had made a claim to that reward, Bush said “anything in relation to any rewards” or any other tip-offs which may have assisted the investigation “will be kept confidential”.

  • In February, police said they were exploring three scenarios in relation to Freeman: he died near Mount Buffalo by self-harm or misadventure; he escaped the area and was being harboured; or that he has escaped the area and has survived without help. On Monday, Bush said “there was a lot to suggest Freeman had taken his own life” but that police investigators “keep their mind open to every possible outcome and follow every possible lead”.

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Why were police searching for Dezi Freeman?

  • Freeman had been on the run since 26 August, when he allegedly shot at 10 police officers who attended a rural property in Porepunkah to execute a search warrant.

  • Two officers were killed and another was wounded. The officers killed were detective leading senior constable Neal Thompson, 59, and senior constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart, 35.

  • Thompson, who was on the verge of retirement, joined Victoria police in 1987 and spent seven years in general duties at Collingwood police station before working as a detective at the major fraud squad and the state crime squad. De Waart had only recently arrived in Wangaratta when the shooting occurred. He started his policing career at the Victoria police academy in late 2018 and worked for three years at St Kilda police station before joining the public order response team as a senior constable in April 2023.

  • Mike Bush told reporters at the time that the officers were “met by the offender, and they were murdered in cold blood”.

  • Freeman was described by police as “heavily armed” and someone who “understands bushcraft well”. He ran into bushland after the shooting and was believed to be armed with multiple firearms, including long arms.

  • The area around the town of Porepunkah, about 210km north-east of Melbourne, is steep and mountainous, backing on to the Mt Buffalo national park.

  • Freeman has a history of association with pseudolaw and “sovereign citizen” ideas. Bush would not confirm this but said he was known to police before the shooting. A former neighbour said Freeman used to spy on her family with drones.

How did the search for Dezi Freeman unfold?

  • Police deployed hundreds of specialist resources, including air and ground, to find him. Mike Bush told reporters on Monday it was “probably the most considerable investment in police resources we have ever seen” and described it as “one of the most significant resourced or largely-resourced police operations in history”.

  • Bush said police had followed up more than 2,000 leads in the seven-month investigation. “Some of them were a number of sightings. None that were confirmed.”

  • He said police from “every jurisdiction across Australia and New Zealand” had helped with the investigation. The Australian Defence Force also provided assistance, Bush said.

  • The search has been affected by extreme weather: the Walwa area was affected by a significant bushfire, which burned for almost two months this summer, and early days of the search near Porepunkah were interrupted by snow and storms.

• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 and Lifeline on 13 11 14