Memphis police officer Carlos Donaldson initially flunked out of the police academy and failed his firearms testing twice.

Officer Brandon Jones was suspended for 20 days when he smashed the glass door of a house where he thought his ex-girlfriend was staying.

Donaldson, Jones and Timothy Hamilton are the three Memphis police officers under scrutiny in the wake of the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old man last month in Whitehaven.

Abdoulaye Thiam was shot by the officers Jan. 2 at his family’s home in the 1300 block of Timothy Drive, off Hermitage Drive, when they responded to a domestic disturbance call. Police allege that Thiam charged at the officers with a knife and all three fired their weapons. 

Thiam graduated in 2016 from Sheffield High School, where he was on the school’s soccer team. He moved to the United States in 2008 from Senegal.

There is video of the shooting from the body cameras of the officers, and it along with all evidence has been turned over to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Police personnel files show the work history of the three officers, who have a combined total of fewer than 10 years with the department. 

Carlos Donaldson

Carlos Donaldson had been a police officer for four months and 17 days when the fatal shooting in Whitehaven occurred.

Donaldson began his law enforcement career in 2017, when he was accepted into the police academy.

When he failed his firearms testing twice during his training – including his “dim light qualification course,” which is a firearms test in low light/nighttime conditions – the academy instructor recommended he be “immediately removed from the basic recruit training program.”

Memphis Police Department transferred him to its police service technicians, or PST, program, where he worked traffic accidents. He later reapplied to the police academy and became a commissioned officer Aug. 16, 2018. He was assigned to the Raines precinct, which is a three-minute drive from where the fatal shooting of Thiam occurred.

Timothy Hamilton

Like Donaldson, Hamilton began his MPD career in 2017. He started out as a police service technician, a program in which young people who are at least 18 years old work traffic accidents and, if they choose, can then apply to the police academy to become an officer.

Hamilton graduated from the academy and became a commissioned MPD officer on Dec. 6, 2018. There were no incidents or other information in Hamilton’s file. He had been a full-time officer for 27 days when he was involved in the shooting of Thiam.

Brandon Jones

Brandon Jones is the veteran among the three officers. He joined MPD in 2010 and was assigned to the Raines precinct in Whitehaven in 2013. In his evaluation, his supervisors said he met all job requirements including job knowledge, but “needed improvement” with “punctuality” and “accepting responsibility on the job.’’

In February 2015, he was investigated by the internal affairs bureau after he smashed the front door of a house where he thought his ex-girlfriend was living, according to his personnel files. He was charged with felony vandalism over $500, but his former girlfriend refused to sign the forms to prosecute him and the charges were dropped.

He also used his MPD-issued police computer equipment to look up whether his ex-girlfriend’s driver’s license was suspended.

During Jones’ disciplinary hearing on the two incidents, a Memphis police union representative said Jones was one of the department’s “leading officers” who “simply made a bad decision that he regrets.”

Lt. Col. Greg Sanders, who was present at the hearing, countered by saying Jones might be a good officer, but his actions “could blow up into a situation where he would have been killed.”

MPD found he violated the department’s personal conduct and compliance with regulation policies for the incidents, and he was suspended for 20 days.

“The details of the criminal investigation coupled with the administrative inquiry convey your actions were neither reasonable nor prudent,” MPD officials wrote in the statement of charges brought against him.

Jones was also suspended for three days in 2014 when he ran a red light and crashed into another car. He told MPD officials during a hearing that his partner called for help on a fight call, and he activated his lights and siren and ran the light. He violated MPD’s policy by using his emergency lights in response to a non-emergency call, officials said.

In addition to his suspension, Jones had to go through remedial driving. He was also written up for calling in sick too many days and reprimanded for another accident in which he backed into a car on the lot of Piccadilly restaurant in 2011.

Jones, Donaldson and Hamilton all remain off the job with pay until the TBI investigation into the fatal shooting is finished.