Australian Police Say Fugitive Gunman Is Being Helped

A gunman on the run in the bush in Australia after being accused of killing two officers was being aided by locals, police said Monday, as the manhunt entered its seventh day.

Heavily armed suspect Dezi Freeman, 56, fled into the bush last week after opening fire on a team of police officers at his home in the eastern state of Victoria, police said.

The shooting in the rural town of Porepunkah killed 59-year-old detective Neal Thompson and 35-year-old senior constable Vadim De Waart.

A third officer was wounded but is expected to recover, they said.

Victorian Police superintendent Brett Kahan said Monday authorities believe someone may be harbouring Freeman.

"People know the whereabouts of the person who has killed two cops," he said.

"People have chosen, for whatever reason, not to come forward and I am taking this time to appeal to you to come forward."

Kahan would not confirm whether it was one person or more helping Freeman -- or detail what information led them to the conclusion he was being aided.

"You are committing an extremely serious crime by harbouring or assisting in the escape of Dezi Freeman," he said.

Kahan said that police had searched hundreds of acres, and the hunt would continue.

Australian media have reported Freeman is a radicalised conspiracy theorist and part of the "sovereign citizen" movement who believe laws do not apply to them.

Police raided a property and arrested the gunman's wife and teenage son last week as part of their investigation into the killings.

Both were released after being questioned.

The suspect's wife, Amalia Freeman, has urged her husband to surrender to police.

Police say officers went to the man's property last week to execute a search warrant.

Though the cause for the warrant has not been released, police said the team at his home included members of the sexual offences and child investigation squad.

During the shootout, police fired at the suspect but apparently did not wound him, they said.

Deadly shootings are relatively rare in Australia, and police fatalities even rarer.

The latest gunshot death listed in a national memorial to fallen police showed one officer shot and killed in 2023.

A ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons has been in place in Australia since a 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people.