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Officers Who Police Union Falsely Claimed Were "Poisoned" By Shake Shack Reportedly Never Had Symptoms

Ben Yakas

Published Jun 22, 2020

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Ben Yakas

Published Jun 22, 2020

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Last week, multiple police unions accused employees of a Manhattan Shake Shack of deliberately poisoning the milkshakes of several NYPD officers. Hours after the inflammatory tweets were published and the story was picked up by the media, the NYPD concluded their investigation by announcing they found "there was no criminality by Shake Shack’s employees." According to a new report about the whole mess, the NYPD officers who were "poisoned" never even showed any symptoms of being sick.

The NY Post sorted through the strange circumstances around the non-incident today, and learned more details that point to how ridiculous and unsubstantial the initial accusations were.

The three officers from a Bronx precinct had ordered from a Shake Shack located at 200 Broadway, via a mobile app, around 7:30 p.m. last Monday. Police sources told the Post that the "order wasn't done in person," so the employees couldn't have known police had placed the order; and no one could have "dosed" the drinks when they got there, because the order was already packaged and waiting for pickup when the came in.

After sipping the milkshakes, something didn't taste right and the officers threw them out; they alerted a Shake Shack manager, who apologized and issued them vouchers for free food or drink, which they accepted, according to the Post. They also told a sergeant about it, which is apparently when everything spiraled out of control: that supervisor reportedly called in the Emergency Service Unit to set up a crime scene at the Shake Shack, while the three officers were taken to Bellevue Hospital, "where they were examined and released without ever showing symptoms."

Simultaneously, a source tells the Post that a lieutenant from The Bronx sent an email to the police unions saying the officers had “started throwing up after drinking beverages they got from shake shack on 200 Broadway”—despite the fact they did no such thing.

As for the milkshakes, the NYPD investigation, which included interviews with multiple employees and review of store footage, ultimately concluded that the off-taste was due to the milkshake machine being cleaned just before the order. On it was residual milkstone remover, an acidic solution used to combat buildup in dairy equipment, the Post reports.

But by then, the story had already spread widely after being tweeted about by the Detective Endowment's Association and the Police Benevolent Association, which falsely claimed officers were sickened after ingesting a "toxic substance, believed to be bleach." The hashtag #BoycottShakeShack trended on Twitter, Donald Trump Jr. blamed left-wing protesters, and the DEA released their own statement saying, “Tonight, three of our brothers in blue were intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack at 200 Broadway in Manhattan."

All those tweets were subsequently deleted, but no apologies were offered from any of the unions. The DEA’s Paul DiGiacomo said in a statement, “No false information was ever put out. It was information that was obtained and was put out to my members for their safety.”

The other irony of course is that the NY Post, which is now debunking how it happened, was one of the first local outlets to run with the story. As City & State wrote recently, the NY Post has been rife with "copaganda" lately, routinely prioritizing police narratives with "anonymous sourcing, zero additional verification and in contradiction of facts that are later reported by the Post itself." Other examples include the story about protesters disguising concrete as ice cream (which were actually just coffee cups used by construction workers to test the composition of the concrete mix); the story about protesters hiding bricks to later use against cops (which turned out to be debris left over from a nearby construction site); and their ongoing crusade against bail reform.

Tagged

cops

shake shack

nypd

i bleach your milkshake

police

Ben Yakas

Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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