A major hunt is continuing in the Australian state of Victoria for a man accused of shooting dead two police officers on his semi-rural property, and injuring a third.
Police have confirmed that they are searching for Dezi Bird Freeman, a conspiracy theorist and self-described 'sovereign citizen' who rejects government and law.
Freeman, 56, has a long history with the police, and his hatred of authority has been well documented in online posts, videos and court documents.
He has called police 'terrorist thugs', compared them to Nazis and tried to arrest a magistrate during court proceedings.
Less than a week before the shooting of two police in Porepunkah, his wife, Mali, had told a neighbour that she was concerned about his behaviour, The Age reports.
Locals in the town have told journalists that the father of two was kind and polite, but then, during the Covid pandemic, his behaviour became erratic and his views more extreme.
Freeman - born Desmond Christopher Filby - developed a public profile for his views on the health crisis. He refused to wear face masks in shops, rejected vaccinations and became increasingly outspoken about his distrust of the government restrictions and lockdowns - of which Victoria had particularly long and strict ones.
'He was anti everything to do with it,' one local told the Sydney Morning Herald. 'He went from being just a pretty ordinary country bloke… a normal dude you'd see at the local footy club all the time to quite a strange bloke. He fell down a bit of a rabbit hole and sort of disappeared and went off the radar.'
Australian media reports that Freeman describes himself as a 'sovereign citizen', who typically believe they are immune from government rules. In Australia, the movement saw a particular boom during the Covid lockdowns of 2020. Victoria's then-Chief Police Commissioner Shane Patton said at the time that officers were forced 'to smash the windows of cars and pull people out to provide details' after they refused to answer questions or show documents.
An Australian Federal Police briefing note from 2023 said the movement had 'an underlying capacity to inspire violence'. In 2021, Freeman was involved in an attempt to have then-state Premier Daniel Andrews tried for treason. Freeman was arrested outside a court in Victoria, where around 250 anti-government protesters had assembled.
Freeman has been in and out of court for years, mainly on driving charges, some of which were dropped. His conduct in court showed his contempt for authority. Shame on you! he shouted at a judge last year, who refused to drop his driving charges.
Neighbours say that Freeman and his family live on a bus on a 20-hectare plot on the outskirts of Porepunkah. Locals told journalists that they thought he lived with several people on the property, in a kind of compound, secured by a big gate with security cameras.
Police have warned that Freeman is 'heavily armed', and the Sydney Morning Herald reports that he is believed to have stolen the guns of the police officers that he allegedly shot.
