Dezi Freeman’s landlord breaks silence on police shooting
Just before her husband shot and killed two police officers, Dezi Freeman’s wife frantically called for help from her homeowner.
Mali Freeman told him, “Andy, come to the bus. The police are here, they’ve surrounded the bus and they’re trying to get in.”
On the morning of August 26 last year, Andrew Swift rushed into the makeshift house on the Freemans’ property in Porepunkah, where they had lived for nearly four years.
This was the first time Swift’s involvement in this ordeal was made public; A recorded interview with the property owners was posted on the Live Free Movement’s YouTube channel on Saturday, detailing their version of what happened the morning Freeman opened fire.
The video, shot in October 2025, shows Andrew and Bec Swift at the resort; The channel’s host takes the Freemans’ bus on a tour around the officers’ barracks and follows Dezi Freeman as they disappear together.
On the bus that morning, Swift faced a “predicament”; Police officers in uniform and plainclothes, all wearing vests equipped with cameras, surrounded Freeman’s home.
After killing the Detective Leader Senior Police Officer Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-HottartFreeman fled into the bush and sparked the largest manhunt in Victorian history. On March 30, he was shot dead by heavily armed police who followed him to a location. Remote hideaway in ThologolongClose to the NSW border.
Swift said he was trying to ease tensions between both parties before the shooting and told officers they were trespassing on his property “unless they had permission.”
“The police said they had a search warrant. They showed me a piece of paper, but the whole scene… I wasn’t in a position to look at the details,” he said.
He could hear the Freemans inside the bus being “totally distressed”, but despite this “Dezi was actually quite calm about asking the right questions, even though his anxiety had increased”.
“At one point, they held the warrant up to the window and explained what the warrant was, and Dezi was basically saying it wasn’t valid, it was a bunch of bullshit, and ‘what this is all really about’.”
Officers then escorted Swift away from the front of the bus and said he was protecting her while she sat behind him. Swift was sitting in the back “10 minutes, maybe 15” before the first gunshot.
“I heard another gunshot, I looked up and saw Dezi retreating.”
Swift didn’t know what happened, and neither did the police. He wasn’t sure if it was one of the officers or his tenant who opened fire.
“At one point I yelled, ‘Dezi, don’t be a jerk. Calm down or something.’
He called Mali, who answered and said he was still on the bus. He then called Dezi Freeman to ask where she was.
“On one hand he says ‘I’m on the bus’ and on the other hand he says he’s in the paddock. But he definitely wasn’t with Mali,” Swift said. “I don’t remember if I turned it off or if he did.”
From there he said he could no longer help the Freemans.
When Swift noticed the officers were injured, he helped the officer load an injured man into the back of his Hi-Lux and take him to a waiting ambulance. “I got into the backseat and two officers helped the injured officer into the backseat,” he said. “I said to the injured officer, ‘I’ll grab you by your belt and vest,’ and lifted the injured officer into the backseat.”
Swift said police knew they had lost two of their own when the officer was put into the ambulance.
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