‘A good country cop’: Former Victoria detective pays tribute to slain Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson

Slain Victoria Police detective Neal Thompson, who was killed in action in Porepunkah on Tuesday, has been remembered as “a good country cop” who loved the bush. Victoria Police revealed the names of the two slain officers on Wednesday afternoon as Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim De Waart. The officers were gunned down at a property outside Porepunkah, about 300km northeast of Melbourne, while executing a search warrant on Tuesday morning. Alleged killer and self-proclaimed sovereign citizen Dezi Freeman remains on the run, with a massive manhunt under way. Former Victoria Police Officer In Charge Crime Investigation Alex Krstic, who was with the force for more than three decades, told NewsWire he first met Neal Thompson, in Collingwood in the “mid-1980s”. “Back in those days, Collingwood was a fairly tough town,” he said. “They were tough working class towns, full of crime.” It was there he met Thompson, who was then a fresh-faced constable in Collingwood Police Station. “He was a … wet behind the ears 19-year-old from Bendigo,” Mr Krstic said. A lover of the outdoors, fishing, his farm and hunting, Mr Thompson and Mr Krstic had a “lot in common”. “Neal maintained his love of the bush,” he said. Over the next decade, he worked as a detective at the Major Fraud Squad and the State Crime Squad. It was in 2007, 20 years after first joining the force, that he moved to the Wangaratta CIU. “(Thompson) was a country boy, he was always a country boy,” Krstic said. “He loved the bush, loved the people, and the way that he spoke and the way that conducted himself was very welcoming, nice sort of guy.” Krstic said 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,” Krstic said. “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.” Mr Thompson was only a few weeks away from retirement when he was killed in the line of duty. “I was having a beer with him in Alexandra a couple of weeks ago,” Mr Krstic told NewsWire. “He’s the sort of person that you would be happy to have a beer with or spend an afternoon with talking about cows and things like that.” Upon his retirement, Mr Thompson planned to go fishing and continue his love for the outdoors with his partner, Lisa. “We were talking about planning his retirement; we were talking about going fishing together,” Mr Krstic told NewsWire. “It’ll never happen now.” The couple had finished fixing up their home in the lead-up to his imminent retirement. “(Neal and Lisa) had only just finished building their bloody house, you know,” Mr Krstic told NewsWire. “He was doing the property up, making it look a bit nicer and all that. He had it all planned out, and unfortunately, the plan’s all collapsed.” 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”. “In the coming days, weeks and months, we will all grieve this loss and deeply miss our colleagues and friends who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty,” he said in a statement. “It is not lost on me that our members take a risk every time they go to work to protect the Victorian community. While we all live with the knowledge that the worst could happen on a shift, we don’t expect it to. “In these difficult times it is so important that our people stand together and support each other, and I have full confidence that we will all do this with dignity and respect.” Mr Bush said Senior Constable de Waart joined St Kilda Police Station after finishing his training where he worked for three years, before joining PORT 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. “He was a keen gin collector and always picked up a local bottle on his overseas adventures for his large collection at home. “While travelling was his passion, Vadim was extremely proud to have purchased his first home in Melbourne in recent years.” He is survived by his parents Carolina and Alain, who live in his native Belgium, and his younger brother Sacha who lives in Switzerland. “Closer to home in Melbourne, he leaves behind his aunty Jacqueline, uncle Shane, uncle Peter, aunty Maria and his cousins Christopher, Jeremy, Laura and Tessa.”