Hours after multiple police unions accused Manhattan Shake Shack employees of deliberately poisoning their milk shakes, the NYPD now says there is no evidence that a crime was committed.
The wild accusation was promoted Monday night by the Detective Endowment's Association and the Police Benevolent Association, which claimed that three officers were sickened after ingesting a "toxic substance, believed to be bleach."
“Tonight, three of our brothers in blue were intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack at 200 Broadway in Manhattan,” the DEA said in their own statement.
According to the unions, the officers noticed a funny taste in the milkshakes while taking a break from monitoring protesters near the Fulton Center at around 8:30 p.m. They were taken to Bellevue Hospital with unknown symptoms and have since been released.
A subsequent investigation by the NYPD found "there was no criminality by shake shack’s employees," Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted on Tuesday morning.
By that point, local and national media had dutifully reported on the bleached shakes. A host of right-wing conspiracists, including Donald Trump Jr., quickly seized on the tale as evidence of the threat posed by left-wing protesters to the NYPD.
The PBA has not yet reacted to the department's clearing of Shake Shack. In their pinned tweet, the group claims that "police officers cannot even take meal without coming under attack."
Inquiries to both the PBA and the DEA were not returned.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday morning he was concerned by the unions' habit of spreading misinformation about New Yorkers. "These union leaders don’t want the truth, they just want to sow division," he said. "We have to figure out what the limits are on their right to do that."
It's not the first time the members of the NYPD have floated baseless theories about food tampering. After a plainclothes officer reported finding a razor blade inside his sandwich last year, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea accused a Queens deli worker of an "abhorrent" act of violence. An investigation later determined the blade was included accidentally — likely left in the kitchen by a construction crew.
Last summer, the Marion County Sheriff's Office launched an investigation into an Indianapolis McDonald's, after a sheriff's deputy accused fast food workers of taking a bite from his sandwich. An investigation later determined the deputy "forgot" he ate the sandwich.
