Batman socks, a dog fountain and a corner cafe: Victoria police mark a year since two officers were killed
Police in Victoria have marked a year since two officers were killed in an ambush in the state’s high country with memorials that were deliberately
Police in Victoria have marked a year since two officers were killed in an ambush in the state’s high country with memorials that were deliberately simple, personal and close to home. Hundreds gathered outside the Wangaratta station on Tuesday as officers unveiled rock memorials for Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart, with a dog fountain to follow for Thompson, a man remembered for his love of dogs.
The tribute comes almost exactly a year after Thompson and de Waart-Hottart went to serve a warrant at Dezi Freeman’s remote property near Porepunkah, in Victoria’s alpine north-east. They did not know what was waiting for them. They did know they were going out with two of the force’s best.
A deadly callout
Thompson, a veteran detective, was days from retirement and on what colleagues described as his last proper job. De Waart-Hottart, 35, had recently come across from Melbourne’s Public Order Response Squad and was seen as a rising officer.
The ambush that followed left both men dead and another officer injured. Freeman then vanished into the wilds around Mount Buffalo, triggering what became Australia’s biggest-ever manhunt. Seven months later, he was killed in a shootout more than 100 kilometres away near the New South Wales border.
The killings hit the local community hard. They also left two police families facing a loss that will not be measured in headlines or operation updates. Tuesday’s gathering made that plain. Quietly.
Tributes built into place
Police have chosen memorials that reflect the men rather than the violence that took them. The two stones unveiled at Wangaratta sit side by side, a small but deliberate gesture. Another plaque will be placed in Bright, higher in the mountains, on the first anniversary of the killings on Wednesday.
Thompson’s tribute has an extra touch. A dog fountain is being installed for the officer known among colleagues as a dog-lover. One of the source stories also points to a more personal detail: Batman socks, a small nod that fits the tone of the day, not loud, not polished, just remembered.
That was the mood outside the station. No ceremony could undo what happened in the high country last year. But the memorials, and the crowd that came to stand by them, showed how police communities often grieve: with objects, places and small details that keep a name in the open.
The final plaque in Bright is set to be unveiled a year on from the killings, as Victoria’s police and the wider region continue to live with the aftermath of a case that began with a warrant and ended in one of the state’s darkest days.
