Porepunkah police shooting: The final moments
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Just one day after Jack McLennan's relationship fell apart, he vanished. I couldn't believe this was happening. Immediately, accusations started flying.
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Ten police went to arrest Desi Freeman for child sexual abuse in August last year. Only eight of them left. What happened that morning in remote northern Victoria has haunted police and the community for months, and it will now be examined at a coronial inquest. I'm Stephen Stockwell, and a content warning for this episode. We're going to be describing some distressing scenes and repeating some offensive language.
welcome to the case of police were serving a search warrant as part of a sex crime investigation when freeman opened fire killing a 59 year old detective and 35 year old senior constable mr freeman is a so-called sovereign citizen who believe the government and the courts are illegitimate the two officers were gunned down in poor punker their names now etched in victoria police's honor wall
On Tuesday, we took you inside the coroner's court to look at the final moments of Desi Freeman. But that story started months before his death. The moments that led to that shooting started when he shot and killed two police officers, Vadim Davat-Hodart and Neil Thompson. On the ground in Port Punker after that happened and following along with the inquest is Ashley Aldridge, a reporter at ABC Goldberg Murray. Ashley, thank you for joining us again.
Thanks for having me.
The detail of this shooting is horrific. There's a number of police going up to the bus that Freeman was living in. They're there to execute a search warrant. They gain entry to the bus that he was in, and that's when he opens fire.
Yeah, that's right. Horrific is probably the best way to describe it. We heard yesterday that once the police gained entry into that bus, after about 34 minutes of trying to negotiate with Freeman to get him to come out of that bus, they eventually gained access. And it was then that Detective Leading Senior Constable Neil Thompson was shot. and fell to the ground immediately. And then the other police that were in the annex at the time, they turned to run. And we heard that Senior Constable Vadim Devart Hotat was at that point shot as well.
Yeah, Ash, it is such a dramatic scene. And I mean, I didn't know too many of the details surrounding this. And something I'd always wondered about in this shooting was how prepared police were heading to Freeman's property. I just had questions about how many people there were, what planning was done. But, you know, it did seem like they were quite well-organized.
Yeah, that's right. So we've learnt that there were several units involved in that warrant execution on the day, that being members of the Wangaratta Criminal Investigation Unit, which Detective Thompson was part of, members of the Wangaratta Child Sex Offences Unit, And that was because the warrant that they were there to execute was in relation to the sexual assault of a minor and also uniform officers from the Bright Police Station, which is where Senior Constable Devart Hotart was on secondment from Melbourne at. Now, we know that they met at the Bright Police Station, so many of those officers have travelled from Wangaratta. For people that aren't familiar with the area, that's about a 40-minute drive, so they've travelled from Wangaratta to Bright, met at the police station there for a briefing, and then they've travelled by convoy to the property at Pawpungka.
What led to the police shooting in Porepunkah?
Again, for those unfamiliar with the area, it's about a 10-minute drive back from Bright to Pawpungka toward Wangaratta.
Great. Okay. Thank you, Ash. And I mean, you've got details of the number of officers involved, I think 10 officers involved in total, and also some more details of Freeman's alleged offending as well.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:03
2
What led to the police shooting in Porepunkah?
4:03–8:13
3
What details emerged from the coronial inquest about the shooting?
8:13–15:37
4
How did the police prepare for the arrest of Desi Freeman?
15:37–22:19
5
What happened during the execution of the search warrant?
22:19–25:42
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Case Of
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