Victoria’s High Country is a stunningly beautiful region, with surrounding mountain, snow-fed streams and sprawling forests and farmlands. The scenic beauty sometimes hides dark secrets: in the 1970s, the sinister, child-abuse Family cult run by the psychotic Anne Hamilton-Byrne (real name Evelyn Edwards) lurked in their secret retreat in the mountains surrounding Lake Eildon, hidden from the view of generations who holidayed along the lake.
Porepunkah, a tiny hamlet near the foot of the Mt Buffalo alpine resort, is as pretty as anywhere in the High Country – and now it’s brutally revealed its own dark secrets.
Two officers are dead and another wounded after a shooting at a rural property in Porepunkah, about 300 kilometres north-east of Melbourne.
Heavy gunfire has prevented police from entering the property as they wait for Special Operations officers to arrive on the scene.
Police were, according to the media, at the property to execute a warrant for historical sex abuse allegations when the two officers were shot dead. It’s alleged that the shooter was also one of the ‘sovereign citizen’ nutters.
The alleged Porepunkah shooter is on the run with several family members, including children, police sources have confirmed […]
Police are still searching for the offender, who was living on a bus on the property.
He is believed to be a self-proclaimed sovereign citizen […]
The offender has changed his name to reflect his sovereign citizen status.
This masthead has been told that two weapons were stolen from the fatally wounded officers.
The shooting brings back memories of a similar ambush-shooting, three years ago, in Queensland.
In 2022 two police officers were killed by three members of the fringe group at a remote property outside the town of Wieambilla, Queensland.
Gareth, Nathaniel and Stacey Train shot and killed police constables Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow, as well as neighbour Alan Dare, on December 12 before being killed themselves by members of the Special Emergency Response Team.
At last report, the area was still under semi-lockdown, with the gunman still on the run, whereabouts unknown. The injured police officer is undergoing emergency surgery in Melbourne.
The gunman has been identified as Dezi Freeman.
Dezi Freeman, a 56-year-old conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly espoused hatred for police, has been identified as the alleged gunman.
Freeman, a self-proclaimed “sovereign citizen”, remains on the run from police with his wife, Mali, and at least one other family member.
He made headlines in 2021 when he attempted to privately prosecute then Premier Daniel Andrews on treason and fraud charges.
Freeman was arrested outside the Myrtleford Court before the December 2021 hearing, where he described the officers “”scumbags” and “criminal filth” who were “obsessed with power”. On another occasion, in 2020, he called an officer who pulled him over for speeding as a “terrorist’ and “corrupt scum”.
Nutters like him gave the freedom movement a bad name, by giving the legacy media a straw-man to hold up as somehow the mainstream. As far as they’re concerned, now, he’s the gift who keeps on giving.
