September 23, 2025 • 17 mins
Almost a month after two police officers were shot and killed in regional Victoria, the accused gunman – Dezi Freeman – is still at large.
Victoria Police have deployed thousands of officers, searched more than a hundred properties, and offered the biggest reward in Victorian history – with no result.
People have also been combing Freeman’s Facebook history, which plots a journey from nature photos and family updates, to calling police “Gestapo cowards” and who deserve “Nuremberg 2”.
Today, reporter for Crikey Cam Wilson on what Dezi Freeman’s years of posts reveal and whether there’s a pattern we can recognise before it boils over into violence.
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Guest: Associate editor for Crikey, Cam Wilson
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. Almost
a month after two police officers were shot and killed
in regional Victoria, the accused gunman, Desi Freeman, is still
at large. Police were going to arrest Freeman on historic
sex offenses at the time. Victoria police have deployed thousands
(00:23):
of officers, searched more than one hundred properties, and offered
the biggest reward in Victorian history, with no results so far.
Police have also been combing Freeman's Facebook history, which what's
the journey of a nature lover sharing photos of landscapes
and family updates to someone posting violent fantasies, calling police
Gestapo cowards who deserve a second Nuremberg Today. Associate editor
(00:47):
of Kriichi, Cam Wilson on what Desi Freeman's years of
posts reveal about how he was radicalized and whether there's
a pattern we can recognize before it boils over into violence.
It's Wednesday, September twenty four, So, Cam Desi Freeman, the
(01:10):
so called sovereign citizen who is still at large after
allegedly killing two police officers almost a month ago. You've
been looking at the trail of posts that he left
on social media. So as you've been doing that, what
were the first signs that he was becoming more interested
in fringe or conspiracy ideas.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
When you look at his early stuff, it's very normal
for a middle aged man who's interested in nature. There's
photos of rural Victoria, the photos of his family. It's
a very normal Facebook account. And there was a sprinkling
always of conspiratorial narratives and kind of reactionary ideas, even
(01:55):
from early on. So I have this trove spanning, you know,
close to a decade of his posts, and he always
had a bit of a b inw his bonnet about
the legal system.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
But for the most part, if you just looked.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
At his early Facebook posts from twenty eighteen, you wouldn't
think that there was anything out of the ordinary.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
On Friday, Victoria Police conducted the largest ever tactical policing
operation in Australia's history as part of our mission to
find Freeman. This with incredibly rugged areas. They were crawling
through caves, they were traversing rivers and falls, they were
searching plantations and gorgeous in an effort to find Freeman.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
The fact that Freeman still has not been caught is
pretty extraordinary at this point. So looking through his history,
what did you find out about his capacity as opposed
to evade authorities for this long?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I mean, just look at his Facebook feed. You only
get one view of him, but you know, he's always
been interested in nature. He's clearly someone who was very
comfortable traversing Victoria's wilderness, and he had for a long
time and interest in doomsday prepper communities. For those who
are not familiar, there is and has been communities online
(03:13):
offline of people who believe that, for one reason or another,
that civilization will break down, or at.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
The very least that they will decide to.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Weave it themselves and so figure out ways to become
self reliant and to be able to survive outside of civilization.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Does there tend to be, in your experience, much overlap
between doomsday preppers and sovereign citizens.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, loo's a good question. I don't have a whole
lot of data.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
You can imagine that those kinds of world views align.
If you ask someone who believes that the law is illegitimate,
you might, you know, naturally, think about what alternatives that
you have.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
But very often, I can say from my.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Experiences of the doomsday prepper communities. You know, that ultimately
fatalistic view of society, This idea that eventually something's going
to happen and it's all going to fall apart, comes
hand in hand with I guess, pretty negative view of
society that you often see with sovereign citizens.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
All right, well, tell me more about Freeman's I suppose
anti authority journey online. You mentioned that quite early on
he was posting about the legal system, So tell me
a bit more about what he was actually putting out
there and how that progressed.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, so, when you look through his Facebook feed, it
was actually remarkable the way that there was just this
clear journey. He was sharing well known MRAs like men
rights activists.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Or figures who are popular with them.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So you know, for example, he shared stuff from Sidney Watson,
a well known YouTuber who was talking about women pedling lies,
trying to abuse the family call process to get custody
of children.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
If we all actually cared about the welfare of children,
like so many feminists and other allowed screeny people like
to see they do, then all sides of this would
be calling to rectify a justice system that destroys the
lives of fathers.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
A Betina Aren't.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Also an Australian who was quite well known, Desi Freeman
was sharing her.
Speaker 6 (05:04):
Content saying there's an epidemic of domestic violence in this
country is a gross deception and that utter insult to
the bulk of decent, safe Australian men.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We shared this post of Pauline Hanson talking about how
the family court system was inherently unfair to men and fathers.
Speaker 7 (05:25):
We've heard about domestic violence orders brought against you know, partners.
That is untrue. There's lies being told. You know, people
have their own self interests, but it really at the
end of the day, is it right on the other parent?
Is it right for the children?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
He also showed a kind of interesting I would say
conservative Christian figures. He posted about Israel Flal's conflict with
Robby Australia when he was sacked over his homophobic posts.
Speaker 8 (05:54):
When you say, because I'm so inclusive, I can't include you,
because we're so about unity, we're going to disunite from you,
because we're all about tolerance, We're not going to tolerate you,
it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Make a gram of sense.
Speaker 8 (06:04):
What this really is about, the truth about this is
that they hate what he believes and they intend to
punish him for it.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And so you know, from early on he equally had
these politics, but it wasn't kind of all consuming. And
I really noticed that ramping up in the lead into
that summer of twenty nineteen twenty twenty, where it kind
of feels like that was a change for everyone. It
was a pretty terrible bushfire season. Desi Freeman was obviously,
you know, very interesting the environment and had a lot
of attention to it. You know, he had a lot
(06:32):
of photographs and posts about fires, but he kind of
picked up on some of that climate denihilism, where he
would blame, for example, not man made climate change, but
instead he would talk about, you know, the need for
more backburning and why that hadn't been done. And then
when it came to COVID nineteen into early twenty twenty,
you know, that really marked a big change for him.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Okay, tell me a bit more about how much COVID
ramped up his beliefs, and I suppose I was soo
his actions.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, So there's this moment in early twenty twenty where
his profile, which was varied up to that point, becomes
obsessive about one thing, which was COVID nineteen restrictions, and
you could see that there's just a moment in March
twenty twenty where suddenly he posts about it for the
first time. I think, if Ericle correctly, it's a meme
(07:23):
like that's like COVID nineteen no actually like COVID nineteen
eighty four, a reference to the dystopic novel. And from there,
you know, not only is he posting intensely about it,
you know, his rhetoric, his language orly steps up, but
also he's just posting a lot about it. He's posting,
you know, many times a day and you know, every day.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Of the week. And from that point you see him
immediately cast.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
COVID nineteen and the public health response to it as
a conspiracy about government control. That's when he starts to
then post about former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. And then ultimately,
as has been and you know, while we reported, you know,
he would go on to file documents that would attempt
to try Dan Andrews for treason.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Ultimately that was rejected, but he immediately.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Showed that he had a disdain for this kind of
government control over his life. And then those sovereign citizen
or pseudo or ideas, this way of like, not only
do I disagree with the public health restrictions, but actually,
like I actually think that he's done something inherently legally wrong.
That was his way of almost enacting those beliefs.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So he showed these strong anti government beliefs. But what
about the police specifically, when does he start to direct
anger towards them and in what way?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, so, police, more than anything else over that seven
year period was really the people who got the focus
of his eye. And you know, looking back is almost
chilling in the way that it was so obvious, you know,
the early posts, even before things really took a turn
around COVID, he would accuse them of being you know,
corrupt or not good to their jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
In the lead up to twenty.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Twenty, he would share stories, for example, out police misconduct
that we're in the media and attached his own commentary
to it.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
But that really took on a.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
New level when they were responsible for, you know, enforcing
lockdowns and mask mandates and that kind of things. You
must produce your ID card before exercising a power. You're
exercising a power right by questioning, you're.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Going to provide your name and address, taste hel he'd
be humanizing them, he would be calling for ultimately violence
against them.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
He shared some images.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Once of someone else and then once he purported of
his wife sustaining injuries of bruising from an interaction with police.
I believe that that was to do with something to
do with like a clash because of COVID nineteen restrictions,
you are unhormal and he would ultimately, you know, call
(09:57):
for the Nuremberg I against them, soference to those Nazi
era public trials and ultimately executions of the German officers
who were responsible for carrying out everything that happened in
Nazi Germany. You know, he was directing all of that
at police in a pretty extreme way.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Coming up what we can learn from tracking Desi Freeman's
online journey cam Desi Freeman is not the first person
with this type of belief system to be accused of
murdering police officers in Australia. So how much overlap is
(10:39):
there between the things that he was posting and what
we know about the trains so Nathaniel Stacey and Gareth
and the types of things they believed in before they
murdered two police officers and their neighbor in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, I said, ultimately as philosophically not that different in
some ways, but kind of almost from a different end.
I went the Wienbiller in quest. I covered the shooting
after it happened. Gareth Train, based on his online posts
his YouTube account that I discovered he was kind of
more again obsessed with these powerful forces.
Speaker 9 (11:14):
A forensic psychiatrist, after analyzing diary entries, letters and text messages,
told the coroner of the Trains were in the grip
of a shared psychotic disorder.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
He believed that he was being surveiled by the government.
He believed that the helicopters flying over his property at
times trying to spy on him.
Speaker 9 (11:32):
The court herd Gareth Train was the dominant force. He
was paranoid, obsessed with guns and spooked conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
The Trains and Gareth specifically cast these polices almost like
a more powerful force, whereas DESI just saw them as
you know, the foot soldiers of a deeply unfair thing,
you know. He viewed the more as I guess you
would call it, like fascists and unfair and not like
a secret pot.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And cam to what extent should we consider people like
Freeman as loan actors versus part of a coherent group,
because police in Victoria seem to believe that he is
being harbored by other people right now, which seems to
suggest that, you know, he knows people, He has loyalty
from people who presumably have the same kind of belief
(12:22):
system as him.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean it's hard to know again without more
details about his life. Freeman was obviously on a property
with several other people, you know, like he was part
of a local community. He wasn't a significant figure in
pseudo or movements. While he did, you know, his stories
did gain some notoriety and he did have some connection
to them, it wasn't like he built up a significant following.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
He was just one guy in it who had.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Clearly acted on some of it and then had that
interaction with police when they tried to act out that
warrant in late August. So to what we can tell
from based on what's been made public, While he may
have people who are helping him, this was not like,
you know, the coordinated activity.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Of a group. This is not a movement, the pseudo
wall movement.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's deeply organized and working together. They are a kind
of broad like constellation of people who you know, have
some interactions, may listen to similar information sources, but are
ultimately on their own. These are people who, because of
their own individual circumstances and because of their own belief system,
ultimately decide to do something like this. And that's largely
(13:29):
a very least like a kind of personal decision, and
that makes it so difficult to track because who knows
when that boils over for them?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And unfortunately, you know this is the kind of consequence
what it does.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And all of this material that you've been going through online,
they show how Freeman's obsessions they kind of fested over time,
and how he started to kind of make threats I suppose,
and he was posting sort of fantasies of violence. So
what should we take from looking back over someone's radicalization
like this.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's such a vexed problem because as someone who's paid
a lot of attention to these communities, there is a
lot of violent rhetoric that freaks me out, as you
freak everyone out.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
But I also know.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That the vast majority of those people never escalate to
a point of violence like Freeman, did you know, like
the trains did, it's a very difficult from the outside
to know who is going to do it, while at
the same time, when you look back at these you're like,
I'm not at all surprised that someone who was saying
these things ended up doing it.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
So I'm recently authored a book. Well, one of the
things that we.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Kind of understood is that you know, there are these
material influences on why people believe extreme and things or
conspiracy beliefs, and ultimately, I think you know, if you're
looking at this group of people and you don't know
which one's about to boil over, perhaps the best thing
to be doing is thinking about, well, how can we
overall decrease the group of people who feel that way?
(14:54):
What are we doing to make sure these people don't
get to the point where they believe that's the only
way out. Zie Freeman did is it's inexcusable, no matter
what circumstances he was under like, there is no excuse
for what he had done.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
But it's also.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Worth understanding that there are circumstances that we do know
that broadly lead people to these things, and so whatever
we can do to reduce those I think will ultimately
have some kind of beneficial effect. A man like this
tries to live his life off the grid, and that's
going to make tracking and understanding him difficult. I do,
(15:30):
unfortunately think that there is just a randomness to this
and that's a very uncomfortable thing to have to sit with.
We can't track and know what's going on in everyone's mind.
I think that there are definitely ideas about how to
bring people back into society, but I would just say
just generally, like the temperature for everyone is so high,
and no doubt that's how a contribution.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
To this well, Ken, thank you so much for your
time my persure, I thank you. You can read cam
Wilson's reporting on DESI Rhaman at krikey dot com dot
a U. Also in the news today, Australian health experts,
(16:18):
including the Peak Body for Obstetricians and Gynecologists have condemned
comments from US President Donald Trump warning of paracetamol use
during pregnancy. President Trump has made unfounded claims that pregnant
women should limit their use of paracetamol, which he says
heightens the chance of autism in a child. Australia's Medicines
regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration reconfirmed that the drug is
(16:41):
safe for use in pregnancy, and the Trump administration's claims
have been broadly condemned as baseless and causing unnecessary fear.
And A New South Wales police officer has been charged
with assault over the arrest of former Green's candidate Hannah
Thomas during a protest in southwest Sydney in June of
this year. Thomas alleges she was punched by a male officer,
(17:02):
causing a serious injury to her eye, as police tried
to arrest her for failing to comply with a move
on direction during a protest outside a Sydney firm reportedly
linked to the manufacture of components for United States fighter
jets used by the Israeli Defense Forces. A thirty three
year old senior constable has been issued a court attendance
for assault occasioning actual bodily hump. I'm Ruby Jones. This
(17:25):
is seven am. See you tomorrow.
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. Almost
a month after two police officers were shot and killed
in regional Victoria, the accused gunman, Desi Freeman, is still
at large. Police were going to arrest Freeman on historic
sex offenses at the time. Victoria police have deployed thousands
(00:23):
of officers, searched more than one hundred properties, and offered
the biggest reward in Victorian history, with no results so far.
Police have also been combing Freeman's Facebook history, which what's
the journey of a nature lover sharing photos of landscapes
and family updates to someone posting violent fantasies, calling police
Gestapo cowards who deserve a second Nuremberg Today. Associate editor
(00:47):
of Kriichi, Cam Wilson on what Desi Freeman's years of
posts reveal about how he was radicalized and whether there's
a pattern we can recognize before it boils over into violence.
It's Wednesday, September twenty four, So, Cam Desi Freeman, the
(01:10):
so called sovereign citizen who is still at large after
allegedly killing two police officers almost a month ago. You've
been looking at the trail of posts that he left
on social media. So as you've been doing that, what
were the first signs that he was becoming more interested
in fringe or conspiracy ideas.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
When you look at his early stuff, it's very normal
for a middle aged man who's interested in nature. There's
photos of rural Victoria, the photos of his family. It's
a very normal Facebook account. And there was a sprinkling
always of conspiratorial narratives and kind of reactionary ideas, even
(01:55):
from early on. So I have this trove spanning, you know,
close to a decade of his posts, and he always
had a bit of a b inw his bonnet about
the legal system.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
But for the most part, if you just looked.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
At his early Facebook posts from twenty eighteen, you wouldn't
think that there was anything out of the ordinary.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
On Friday, Victoria Police conducted the largest ever tactical policing
operation in Australia's history as part of our mission to
find Freeman. This with incredibly rugged areas. They were crawling
through caves, they were traversing rivers and falls, they were
searching plantations and gorgeous in an effort to find Freeman.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
The fact that Freeman still has not been caught is
pretty extraordinary at this point. So looking through his history,
what did you find out about his capacity as opposed
to evade authorities for this long?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I mean, just look at his Facebook feed. You only
get one view of him, but you know, he's always
been interested in nature. He's clearly someone who was very
comfortable traversing Victoria's wilderness, and he had for a long
time and interest in doomsday prepper communities. For those who
are not familiar, there is and has been communities online
(03:13):
offline of people who believe that, for one reason or another,
that civilization will break down, or at.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
The very least that they will decide to.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Weave it themselves and so figure out ways to become
self reliant and to be able to survive outside of civilization.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Does there tend to be, in your experience, much overlap
between doomsday preppers and sovereign citizens.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, loo's a good question. I don't have a whole
lot of data.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
You can imagine that those kinds of world views align.
If you ask someone who believes that the law is illegitimate,
you might, you know, naturally, think about what alternatives that
you have.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
But very often, I can say from my.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Experiences of the doomsday prepper communities. You know, that ultimately
fatalistic view of society, This idea that eventually something's going
to happen and it's all going to fall apart, comes
hand in hand with I guess, pretty negative view of
society that you often see with sovereign citizens.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
All right, well, tell me more about Freeman's I suppose
anti authority journey online. You mentioned that quite early on
he was posting about the legal system, So tell me
a bit more about what he was actually putting out
there and how that progressed.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, so, when you look through his Facebook feed, it
was actually remarkable the way that there was just this
clear journey. He was sharing well known MRAs like men
rights activists.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Or figures who are popular with them.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So you know, for example, he shared stuff from Sidney Watson,
a well known YouTuber who was talking about women pedling lies,
trying to abuse the family call process to get custody
of children.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
If we all actually cared about the welfare of children,
like so many feminists and other allowed screeny people like
to see they do, then all sides of this would
be calling to rectify a justice system that destroys the
lives of fathers.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
A Betina Aren't.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Also an Australian who was quite well known, Desi Freeman
was sharing her.
Speaker 6 (05:04):
Content saying there's an epidemic of domestic violence in this
country is a gross deception and that utter insult to
the bulk of decent, safe Australian men.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We shared this post of Pauline Hanson talking about how
the family court system was inherently unfair to men and fathers.
Speaker 7 (05:25):
We've heard about domestic violence orders brought against you know, partners.
That is untrue. There's lies being told. You know, people
have their own self interests, but it really at the
end of the day, is it right on the other parent?
Is it right for the children?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
He also showed a kind of interesting I would say
conservative Christian figures. He posted about Israel Flal's conflict with
Robby Australia when he was sacked over his homophobic posts.
Speaker 8 (05:54):
When you say, because I'm so inclusive, I can't include you,
because we're so about unity, we're going to disunite from you,
because we're all about tolerance, We're not going to tolerate you,
it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Make a gram of sense.
Speaker 8 (06:04):
What this really is about, the truth about this is
that they hate what he believes and they intend to
punish him for it.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And so you know, from early on he equally had
these politics, but it wasn't kind of all consuming. And
I really noticed that ramping up in the lead into
that summer of twenty nineteen twenty twenty, where it kind
of feels like that was a change for everyone. It
was a pretty terrible bushfire season. Desi Freeman was obviously,
you know, very interesting the environment and had a lot
of attention to it. You know, he had a lot
(06:32):
of photographs and posts about fires, but he kind of
picked up on some of that climate denihilism, where he
would blame, for example, not man made climate change, but
instead he would talk about, you know, the need for
more backburning and why that hadn't been done. And then
when it came to COVID nineteen into early twenty twenty,
you know, that really marked a big change for him.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Okay, tell me a bit more about how much COVID
ramped up his beliefs, and I suppose I was soo
his actions.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, So there's this moment in early twenty twenty where
his profile, which was varied up to that point, becomes
obsessive about one thing, which was COVID nineteen restrictions, and
you could see that there's just a moment in March
twenty twenty where suddenly he posts about it for the
first time. I think, if Ericle correctly, it's a meme
(07:23):
like that's like COVID nineteen no actually like COVID nineteen
eighty four, a reference to the dystopic novel. And from there,
you know, not only is he posting intensely about it,
you know, his rhetoric, his language orly steps up, but
also he's just posting a lot about it. He's posting,
you know, many times a day and you know, every day.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Of the week. And from that point you see him
immediately cast.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
COVID nineteen and the public health response to it as
a conspiracy about government control. That's when he starts to
then post about former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. And then ultimately,
as has been and you know, while we reported, you know,
he would go on to file documents that would attempt
to try Dan Andrews for treason.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Ultimately that was rejected, but he immediately.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Showed that he had a disdain for this kind of
government control over his life. And then those sovereign citizen
or pseudo or ideas, this way of like, not only
do I disagree with the public health restrictions, but actually,
like I actually think that he's done something inherently legally wrong.
That was his way of almost enacting those beliefs.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So he showed these strong anti government beliefs. But what
about the police specifically, when does he start to direct
anger towards them and in what way?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, so, police, more than anything else over that seven
year period was really the people who got the focus
of his eye. And you know, looking back is almost
chilling in the way that it was so obvious, you know,
the early posts, even before things really took a turn
around COVID, he would accuse them of being you know,
corrupt or not good to their jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
In the lead up to twenty.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Twenty, he would share stories, for example, out police misconduct
that we're in the media and attached his own commentary
to it.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
But that really took on a.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
New level when they were responsible for, you know, enforcing
lockdowns and mask mandates and that kind of things. You
must produce your ID card before exercising a power. You're
exercising a power right by questioning, you're.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Going to provide your name and address, taste hel he'd
be humanizing them, he would be calling for ultimately violence
against them.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
He shared some images.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Once of someone else and then once he purported of
his wife sustaining injuries of bruising from an interaction with police.
I believe that that was to do with something to
do with like a clash because of COVID nineteen restrictions,
you are unhormal and he would ultimately, you know, call
(09:57):
for the Nuremberg I against them, soference to those Nazi
era public trials and ultimately executions of the German officers
who were responsible for carrying out everything that happened in
Nazi Germany. You know, he was directing all of that
at police in a pretty extreme way.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Coming up what we can learn from tracking Desi Freeman's
online journey cam Desi Freeman is not the first person
with this type of belief system to be accused of
murdering police officers in Australia. So how much overlap is
(10:39):
there between the things that he was posting and what
we know about the trains so Nathaniel Stacey and Gareth
and the types of things they believed in before they
murdered two police officers and their neighbor in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, I said, ultimately as philosophically not that different in
some ways, but kind of almost from a different end.
I went the Wienbiller in quest. I covered the shooting
after it happened. Gareth Train, based on his online posts
his YouTube account that I discovered he was kind of
more again obsessed with these powerful forces.
Speaker 9 (11:14):
A forensic psychiatrist, after analyzing diary entries, letters and text messages,
told the coroner of the Trains were in the grip
of a shared psychotic disorder.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
He believed that he was being surveiled by the government.
He believed that the helicopters flying over his property at
times trying to spy on him.
Speaker 9 (11:32):
The court herd Gareth Train was the dominant force. He
was paranoid, obsessed with guns and spooked conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
The Trains and Gareth specifically cast these polices almost like
a more powerful force, whereas DESI just saw them as
you know, the foot soldiers of a deeply unfair thing,
you know. He viewed the more as I guess you
would call it, like fascists and unfair and not like
a secret pot.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
And cam to what extent should we consider people like
Freeman as loan actors versus part of a coherent group,
because police in Victoria seem to believe that he is
being harbored by other people right now, which seems to
suggest that, you know, he knows people, He has loyalty
from people who presumably have the same kind of belief
(12:22):
system as him.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean it's hard to know again without more
details about his life. Freeman was obviously on a property
with several other people, you know, like he was part
of a local community. He wasn't a significant figure in
pseudo or movements. While he did, you know, his stories
did gain some notoriety and he did have some connection
to them, it wasn't like he built up a significant following.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
He was just one guy in it who had.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Clearly acted on some of it and then had that
interaction with police when they tried to act out that
warrant in late August. So to what we can tell
from based on what's been made public, While he may
have people who are helping him, this was not like,
you know, the coordinated activity.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Of a group. This is not a movement, the pseudo
wall movement.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's deeply organized and working together. They are a kind
of broad like constellation of people who you know, have
some interactions, may listen to similar information sources, but are
ultimately on their own. These are people who, because of
their own individual circumstances and because of their own belief system,
ultimately decide to do something like this. And that's largely
(13:29):
a very least like a kind of personal decision, and
that makes it so difficult to track because who knows
when that boils over for them?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And unfortunately, you know this is the kind of consequence
what it does.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And all of this material that you've been going through online,
they show how Freeman's obsessions they kind of fested over time,
and how he started to kind of make threats I suppose,
and he was posting sort of fantasies of violence. So
what should we take from looking back over someone's radicalization
like this.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's such a vexed problem because as someone who's paid
a lot of attention to these communities, there is a
lot of violent rhetoric that freaks me out, as you
freak everyone out.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
But I also know.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That the vast majority of those people never escalate to
a point of violence like Freeman, did you know, like
the trains did, it's a very difficult from the outside
to know who is going to do it, while at
the same time, when you look back at these you're like,
I'm not at all surprised that someone who was saying
these things ended up doing it.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
So I'm recently authored a book. Well, one of the
things that we.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Kind of understood is that you know, there are these
material influences on why people believe extreme and things or
conspiracy beliefs, and ultimately, I think you know, if you're
looking at this group of people and you don't know
which one's about to boil over, perhaps the best thing
to be doing is thinking about, well, how can we
overall decrease the group of people who feel that way?
(14:54):
What are we doing to make sure these people don't
get to the point where they believe that's the only
way out. Zie Freeman did is it's inexcusable, no matter
what circumstances he was under like, there is no excuse
for what he had done.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
But it's also.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Worth understanding that there are circumstances that we do know
that broadly lead people to these things, and so whatever
we can do to reduce those I think will ultimately
have some kind of beneficial effect. A man like this
tries to live his life off the grid, and that's
going to make tracking and understanding him difficult. I do,
(15:30):
unfortunately think that there is just a randomness to this
and that's a very uncomfortable thing to have to sit with.
We can't track and know what's going on in everyone's mind.
I think that there are definitely ideas about how to
bring people back into society, but I would just say
just generally, like the temperature for everyone is so high,
and no doubt that's how a contribution.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
To this well, Ken, thank you so much for your
time my persure, I thank you. You can read cam
Wilson's reporting on DESI Rhaman at krikey dot com dot
a U. Also in the news today, Australian health experts,
(16:18):
including the Peak Body for Obstetricians and Gynecologists have condemned
comments from US President Donald Trump warning of paracetamol use
during pregnancy. President Trump has made unfounded claims that pregnant
women should limit their use of paracetamol, which he says
heightens the chance of autism in a child. Australia's Medicines
regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration reconfirmed that the drug is
(16:41):
safe for use in pregnancy, and the Trump administration's claims
have been broadly condemned as baseless and causing unnecessary fear.
And A New South Wales police officer has been charged
with assault over the arrest of former Green's candidate Hannah
Thomas during a protest in southwest Sydney in June of
this year. Thomas alleges she was punched by a male officer,
(17:02):
causing a serious injury to her eye, as police tried
to arrest her for failing to comply with a move
on direction during a protest outside a Sydney firm reportedly
linked to the manufacture of components for United States fighter
jets used by the Israeli Defense Forces. A thirty three
year old senior constable has been issued a court attendance
for assault occasioning actual bodily hump. I'm Ruby Jones. This
(17:25):
is seven am. See you tomorrow.
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