GREENVILLE, N.C. -- "It is with deepest sympathy that I announce that New Bern Police Officer Alexander E. Thalmann passed away just after 1 p.m. today with his family by his side," said NBPD Chief Toussaint E. Summers, Jr. during an emotional news conference at the Greenville Police Department on Monday.
Thalmann, 22, also a lance corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve, succumbed at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville to the gunshot wound to his face he received during a confrontation with Bryant Augustus Stallings, 35, near Craven Terrace at about 11:45 p.m. Friday.
"Officer Thalmann spent seven short months with the New Bern Police Department, but his dedication and service to the community was evident from the very beginning," Summers said. "He leaves behind not just co-workers and friends but a brotherhood of officers who remain committed to serving the community.
"This has been a very tough time for the department and the community," Summers said. "We have received an outpouring of support from across the state and state lines. We have received prayers and support from the community and we are certainly thankful for that."
"My heart is broken for Officer Thalmann and his loved ones," said N.C. Governor Pat McCrory via a news release. "Officer Thalmann had just begun his public service career and the loss of his life in the line of duty is tragic. Our first responders are true heroes and we shouldn't let a day go by without praying for their safety and thanking them for their valued service to North Carolina."
Officer Justin a Wester, 23, was shot in the leg during the incident and was treated and released from Vidant on Sunday. Stallings was killed at the scene.
Bryan Stallings, also known as William Ellison, Bryan Augustus Stallings, X Flute and Flute Stallings, had an extensive criminal history dating back nearly 18 years, according to North Carolina and Osceola County, Fla., records.
Stallings' criminal career appears to begin in 1996 in Craven County, where he was convicted of felony drug possession, misdemeanor larceny and resisting an officer.
Stallings was a registered sex offender under the name William Ellison, for crimes committed in Osceola in 2000, where he was charged with lewd, lascivious exhibition by person older than 17, lewd act upon a child, public indecent exposure and battery for a June 5, 2000, offense, according to Osceola court records. Stallings was also charged with felony possession of cocaine and resisting an officer without violence on that date. He served almost six years of a 10-year sentence in prison for the crimes.
On Sept. 10, 2000, he was charged in Osceola County with two counts felony possession with the intent to sell, possession of cocaine, tampering with physical evidence, resisting an officer and possession of drug paraphernalia.
In January 2001 he was charged with four felony counts of smuggling contraband in to a detention facility, and a charge of possession of cannabis. Five months later he was charged with felony battery by a detainee in a detention facility.
On Sept. 11, 2009, Stallings, was found incompetent to stand trial for failing to register as a sex offender and sent to a state hospital in Florida. On Feb. 12, 2010, he was found competent to stand trial and charged with two felony counts of failing to register as a sex offender. Specific details were not immediately available.
Two days after being released, he was charged with false imprisonment, battery of a firefighter, resisting an officer with violence and resisting an officer without violence in February 2008, and he was subsequently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He was released Dec. 1, 2012.
According to his Florida sex offender profile, his residence upon release was Teal Brook Drive in Raleigh.
Friday's deadly shooting incident is under investigation. District Attorney Scott Thomas said earlier, "(There is) nothing at this point to indicate that it (the fatal shooting) was not justified."
Copyright 2014 - Sun Journal, New Bern, N.C.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
