A suspect who shot and killed two police officers and seriously injured a third in Australia’s rural south-east has been identified, police said.
A manhunt is underway for Dezi Freeman, 56, who is heavily armed and experienced in wilderness survival skills, Victoria state’s chief commissioner of police Mike Bush told reporters.
The local residents have been urged to stay indoors.
The whereabouts of Freeman’s wife and two children were initially unknown, but Mr Bush said they had visited a police station and spoken to officers late on Tuesday night.
The shooting happened earlier on Tuesday, when 10 armed police officers tried to execute a search warrant at Freeman’s property in Porepunkah, a town of just over 1,000 people located 200 miles north-east of Melbourne.
Porepunkah Primary School in Porepunkah, Victoria, was locked down for several hours.
The officers “were met by the offender and they were murdered in cold blood,” the police chief said.
Freeman killed a 59-year-old detective and a 35-year-old senior constable, Mr Bush said. Another detective was shot, but his wounds are not life-threatening.
The armed man fled alone on foot into the nearby forest, where an intensive search for him continued through the night and into Wednesday.
Porepunkah is located 200 miles north-east of Melbourne, Australia.
Mr Bush would not elaborate on the search warrant for Freeman’s property and said it was “too soon to say” if his attack on the officers was ideologically motivated.
But he told reporters that some of the officers who tried to execute the search warrant included members of a unit that investigates sexual offences and child abuse.
