{"id":696267,"date":"2026-04-01T02:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/696267\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T02:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:50:13","slug":"victoria-police-formally-identify-dezi-freeman-as-man-shot-dead-in-thologolong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/696267\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Police formally identify Dezi Freeman as man shot dead in Thologolong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Victoria Police have officially confirmed that the person shot dead by officers at <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-03-31\/dezi-freeman-property-hideout-where-he-was-shot-by-police\/106514642\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106514642\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a property in Victoria&#8217;s north-east<\/a> on Monday morning was Dezi Freeman, having previously declined to do so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Police on Wednesday said they had formally identified the deceased as Freeman, who had been on the run for seven months after killing two police officers and injuring a third last August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A police statement said the investigation into the shooting, on a property in Thologolong, was being undertaken by the Homicide Squad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The ABC understands up to eight officers from Victoria Police&#8217;s Special Operations Group fired their weapons towards Freeman on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Police also used non-lethal baton rounds and tear gas during the three-hour standoff.<\/p>\n<p>Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In the statement on Wednesday, police said they could not provide any detail on Freeman&#8217;s movements between the fatal shooting in Porepunkah last year, and the incident in Thologolong, with that investigation also ongoing.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"EmphasisedText_quote__TE6kn\"><p>&#8220;Any impact of the Walwa fires and their proximity to the location where Freeman was located will also form part of those enquiries,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>  the statement said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The remote region was also swarming with emergency services in January, when bushfires tore through the area, scorching more than 120,000 hectares and destroying 14 homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\"><a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-04-01\/dezi-freeman-locals-react-fugitive-police-shooting\/106517746\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106517746\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A local firefighter<\/a> said the ignition point of the mammoth blaze, caused by a lightning strike, was less than a kilometre from Freeman&#8217;s hideout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Victoria Police said families of the officers killed in August \u2014 Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart and Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson \u2014 had decided not to comment at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria Police have officially confirmed that the person shot dead by officers at a property in Victoria&#8217;s north-east&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":177248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,101502,7596,5022,50,5488,10558,8344],"class_list":["post-696267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-australia","tag-dezi-freeman","tag-identified","tag-investigation","tag-news","tag-police-shooting","tag-property","tag-victoria-police"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116327181629210019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}