‘Mongrel idiot’: Former cops lash protester with Dezi Freeman sign at March for Australia protest

Authorities have urged a man carrying a sign depicting alleged police killer Dezi Freeman at the March for Australia protest in Adelaide on Sunday to hand himself in.

The man was seen carrying a placard that read “Free man” under a picture of the wanted man who has been on the run for seven days after he allegedly shot dead two police officers in Victoria.

Acting Police Commissioner Linda Williams said police believed they had identified the man and were trying to locate him.

“It’s offensive, it’s disgraceful, it’s outrageous, and it shouldn’t be tolerated, and it needs to be called out, and rightly so,” she said on ABC Adelaide.

“I think that that would have disturbed any right-minded person, including our members who saw the sign yesterday.”

About 15,000 protesters swarmed Adelaide‘s streets as part of the anti-immigration rally, with attendees carrying flags and placards.

Premier Peter Malinauskas urged the man seen carrying the sign to turn himself in.

“You’ve got to ask yourself the question... What sort of protest is this if there are national socialists, that is Nazis, present and other people who are celebrating (alleged) cop killers,” he told reporters.

“People will make their assessments but clearly this is the sort of behaviour that we see from those who attended the rallies yesterday.

“It’s despicable and disgusting and it’s very hard to find the words for it really.”

A former detective and colleague of police officer Neal Thompson, who was fatally shot in Porepunkah last week, has slammed the protester who held the sign.

Constable Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart were gunned down at a property outside Porepunkah, about 300km northeast of Melbourne, while executing a search warrant on Tuesday morning.

Speaking to Today, former Victoria homicide detective Alex Krstic – who was a colleague of fallen officer Constable Thompson – said the sign was “disgraceful” and “obscene”.

“Personally, I regard that sort of thing as being that the context of the whole thing is disgraceful,” he told Today co-host Karl Stefanovic.

He laid into those who participated in the protest in support of the alleged shooter.

“Anybody who sides with these wackos and fringe dwellers … it’s just brutal stuff,” he said.

“No need for it.”

Another retired detective, Charlie Bezzina, told Sunrise the person who held the sign was a “mongrel idiot”, saying the message behind the placard “incites violence”.

“If you had control of it, you can say to these people, ‘That’s not part of this demonstration’. (Police) could have arrested him for inciting violence,” he said.

“That’s a disgrace.”

Police Minister Anthony Carbines told the ABC that police would take action against the sign holder if possible.

Mr Krstic last week told NewsWire that he first met Constable Thompson in Collingwood in the “mid-1980s” and became friends through their mutual love for the country and hunting.

Mr Krstic said Constable Thompson was a “good bloke” who would prefer to hear all sides of a story, no matter the situation.

“If you were a bad guy, you’d done something terrible, he would always put you in a position where he’d make you comfortable and he’d always give you an opportunity to tell your side of the story,” Mr Krstic told NewsWire.

“He was a good country cop, a good country detective.

“He could relate to offenders, to victims, to witnesses. That’s what made him such a good placement. You need to have empathy, and he had plenty of that.”

In a statement, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said “this devastating loss of Neal and Vadim has struck at the heart of Victoria Police, the broader policing family and the community of Porepunkah”.

Mr Bush said Constable de Waart worked at St Kilda Police Station for three years after finishing his training and then joined joining the public order response team as a senior constable in April 2023.

“At the time of his passing, Vadim was on temporary assignment in Wangaratta,” Mr Bush said.

“An eternal optimist and avid traveller, Vadim was fluent in French, Spanish, Flemish and English.

“He had also completed scuba dives all around the world and motorcycling trips more locally with his friends and colleagues.”