The suspected Porepunkah gunman has a black belt in karate and is an expert bowhunter, according to a man who has known him since the 1990s.

On the fifth day of the manhunt for Dezi Freeman, a former friend has questioned whether police were aware of his deteriorating mental health, suggesting that sending 10 officers to his door to execute a warrant would have been “the worst thing for him”.

Freeman, 56, is alleged to have killed two police officers and injured a third on Tuesday in Porepunkah, north-east of Melbourne.

The man, who did not wish to be named because he still lives in the region where Freeman remains at large, first met the alleged gunman when he volunteered on a farm about three decades ago.

interactive map of Victoria and Porepunkah

At that time, the man said, Freeman was living out of his car and was known as Desmond Filby.

The man regularly socialised with Freeman over the years, and described him as a fit and avid outdoorsman, who was a skilled bowhunter with a black belt in karate, something the man verified because of his own martial arts background.

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But the man described Freeman as “unemployable” because of his issues with authority and his mental health.

Freeman confirmed in documents he filed in the Victorian supreme court last year that he was a “disability pensioner” whose wife and three children survived on a single Centrelink payment.

“He couldn’t hold a job because he had mental health issues … [and] as soon as there was any authority, he didn’t react to it well,” the former friend said. “He wasn’t violent or anything, he just didn’t tolerate it.”

Freeman’s mental health appeared to deteriorate during a stint living in Myrtleford, from about 2016 to 2019, the man said, and then spiralled further as he was drawn into the so-called freedom movement during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The man, who said he last saw Freeman about two years ago, believed his intelligence was “one of his downfalls”, fuelling a curiosity that led to him being radicalised online.

The police search in rugged terrain in Victoria’s high country was hampered late in the week by severe weather conditions. Photograph: Stuart Walmsley/The Guardian

Given Freeman’s history with firearms and interactions with police, the man questioned the decision of officers to execute the warrant as they had on Tuesday.

The Victorian chief police commissioner, Mike Bush, has confirmed that a risk assessment was done and that it had considered deploying the special operations group from Melbourne, but did not request the elite tactical unit.

The appropriateness of that risk assessment is being investigated by police, as is how Freeman accessed guns given he did not have a firearms licence.

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“The worst thing for him would have been having 10 police showing up at his doorstop,” the man said.

“Don’t get me wrong, what he did was horrible, but it was never going to end well.

“He won’t harm civilians, I don’t think – he’s not that sort of person, but he’ll have a go at the cops, that’s for sure.”

Freeman and his extended family have lived in the region for decades. James Filby, a younger brother, who also lives in the state’s north-east, has posted “my prayers are with the fallen police and their grieving familes (sic)” on social media.

Freeman’s former friend suggested he would feel safe around the hamlet of Nug Nug, on the Buffalo River, to the west of Mount Buffalo.

Freeman lived with his family for several years at Nug Nug, before moving to Myrtleford, and then on to the property at Porepunkah, where the shooting happened. This property also backed on to the Mount Buffalo national park.

The western side of Mount Buffalo was steeper, the man said, with caves and crevasses that Freeman would be familiar with.

The Nug Nug property Freeman was said to live on is near the end of a long dirt road, which passes bushland and a camp ground on the river before winding through sweeping green land in the foothills of the mountain.

On Saturday, a tattered piece of faded police tape was tied around the letterbox at the roadside, next to the entrance to a long driveway. The house at the end of it was not visible from the road.

A mailbox and old police tape on a property just west of Nug Nug, about 25km north-west of Porepunkah. Photograph: Stuart Walmsley/The Guardian

The former friend hopes the bloodshed has finished, and that Freeman surrenders soon.

“It’s just tragic … it’s sad it ended up like this.”