SYDNEY: Australian police battled severe alpine weather on Saturday on the fifth day of a search for a gunman who escaped into dense bush after allegedly shooting dead two officers and injuring another at a rural property in Victoria state.
Hundreds of officers were in the field searching for 56-year-old Dezi Freeman, previously known as Desmond Filby, who is believed to have expert bushcraft skills and multiple powerful firearms, a police spokesperson said.
The search area includes the town of Porepunkah, about 300 kilometers northeast of Melbourne, where Freeman is alleged to have fired on police on Tuesday, before fleeing on foot into the bush.
Bureau of Meteorologist senior forecaster Jonathan How said a severe weather warning was current for the region, which was experiencing challenging conditions of cold, wind and snow.
A very cold night was on the way for the area, including possible black ice on roads, How said. A minimum temperature of 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) was forecast on Sunday for Porepunkah, according to the weather bureau.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan visited nearby Wangaratta police station on Friday to pay tribute to the two slain officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart, 35, amid what she said was the “huge operation” by authorities to catch Freeman.
“Their loss won’t be forgotten. With honor they served,” Allan said of the officers on social media platform X.
Freeman is alleged to have fired on a team of 10 police officers, including members of the sexual offenses and child investigation team, when they arrived at his Porepunkah property to execute a search warrant.
Australian media have reported that police believe Freeman is a “sovereign citizen” who regards the government is illegitimate.
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Search for Australian gunman enters fifth day as weather closes in
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Search for Australian gunman enters fifth day as weather closes in
- Dezi Freeman, previously known as Desmond Filby, is believed to have expert bushcraft skills and multiple powerful firearms
- Australian media have reported that police believe Freeman is a “sovereign citizen” who regards the government is illegitimate
Trump suspends green card lottery program that let Brown University, MIT shootings suspect into US
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the US, many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on US soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the US, many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on US soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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