Two Police Unions Spread False Rumor That Shake Shack Workers Intentionally Poisoned Three NYPD Cops

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: BuzzFeed News

After three New York City police officers became ill Monday night after they drank milkshakes purchased at a Shake Shack, two police unions claimed, without evidence, that the cops were "intentionally poisoned" by restaurant workers.

The NYPD said early Tuesday morning that it had investigated the incident and determined there was no criminal wrongdoing by the employees. Investigators believe the substance in their drinks was a cleaning solution that had not been fully cleared out of the milkshake machine, according to CNN.

"After a thorough investigation by the NYPD’s Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by shake shack’s employees," NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted.

Following news that the officers had fallen sick, the Detectives' Endowment Association (DEA), a union for NYPD detectives, on Monday night tweeted an "urgent safety message" about the alleged incident, saying "three of our brothers in blue were intentionally poisoned by one or more workers" at a Shake Shack located in lower Manhattan.



Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/police-unions-shake-shack-milkshake-nypd

[Dream Girl]

1. Maybe they just ate too many donuts...big tummy aches

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Unions are unions, but police & prison guard unions are a whole 'nother thing. There's a pattern. nt

[not_the_one]

32. And they are probably the only two unions who get support from republicans...

because they do the dirty work the republicans want done, to the people they want it done to.

The rest of the worker unions who are working for fair treatment and decent wages, not so much.

[Steelrolled]

3. Where would we be without buzzfeed?

[avebury]

4. The Shake Shack should

sue the police unions. The false allegations could have resulted in a physical attack on the business and/or destroyed their business by costing them customers.

[Mosby]

5. +1

[LisaL]

22. I sure wouldn't want a shake with cleaning solution in it, even if it wasn't intentional.

[yardwork]

29. Of course not, but the investigation determined it was unintentional.

The unions stated that the officers were poisoned intentionally.

[rockfordfile]

23. I agree

[BumRushDaShow]

6. I figured that

expecting it was probably some type of sanitizing mixture that had been run through the machines.

Link to tweet

TEXT

Chief Rodney Harrison
✔
@NYPDDetectives

After a thorough investigation by the NYPD’s Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by shake shack’s employees.

4:02 AM - Jun 16, 2020

[Steelrolled]

8. Surprising they had to go to the hospital.

Maybe it was just nausea from the taste. And once you think you've eaten bad food, your mind can take over.

[BamaRefugee]

9. I'd like to see the log-in register at the ER. I doubt there's a single cop on it.

[Steelrolled]

12. Well it was reported by Buzzfeed, if that gives you more confidence.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. IMHO

it was a stunt.

[stopdiggin]

18. wouldn't it take a significant amount of "cleaner"

left over in a machine to to render the next batch of shakes an actual danger (or irritant for that matter)?

I'm unfamiliar with the actual volumes involved, but ....
Was anybody stomach pumped or admitted?

[BumRushDaShow]

20. I did a quick search

and there are apparently commonly-sold cleaning products for restaurant use for these types of dispenser machines (frozen/dairy) - https://www.webstaurantstore.com/1003/soft-serve-machine-cleaner-and-sanitizer.html

The linked example shows multiple products from various companies that are all basically packets of some chlorine-containing powder that gets mixed with a certain about of water and is then run through the machine (am guessing using the machine's own dispense mechanism/cycle). Then the machine would get flushed with fresh water in the same manner. So it could have been the machine wasn't flushed enough or there was some residue on the exterior of a tube/spout that dispenses the frozen product. The exterior of those spouts often comes in contact with the frozen slushy/ice cream/milkshake as it goes into a cup or cone.

Any type of dispenser has to be cleaned - if anything due to clogging (coffee/k-cup machines are the same way) and this case when there is dairy, no one wants some bacteria like listeria or salmonella growing in the machine.

[DeminPennswoods]

30. Our local municipal authority just did a chlorine add

to our drinking water. Water smells like chlorine at the moment, but you can't taste it and it's not making anyone sick afaik.

[MarcA]

7. The police unions statements seem like they believe they are an occupying force

and civilians are enemy combatants. The would be ruler/oligarchs want it that way
to keep the rest of us in our place physically and financially.

[BamaRefugee]

21. I'm surprised they didn't shoot 7 citizens for each "officer" who "got sick". (Obscure Fascist

Reference )

[TheFourthMind]

11. There is no enemy/crime so they just create them as needed. The NYPD proves protesters right, again.

[Warpy]

13. Nice if it provokes a slander suit

but it probably won't, not in NYC.

I thought from the beginning it sounded like detergent, not any sort of poisonous compound.

[lark]

14. Police unions are a big part of the problem.

I generally support unions, but these have turned toxic in way too many cases, serving to protect racist police and promote white nationalism and harm minorities.

[The Magistrate]

15. The Police Unions Must Be Broken, Ma'am

They are a malign influence on policing, and dug in like so many ticks. Cities ought to start using every trick corporate employers use to thwart labor organizers on police unions, and flat refuse to negotiate contracts with any police union.

[DeminPennswoods]

31. It seems like most contract negotiations end up in binding arbitration

nt

[PJMcK]

16. Josh Marshall of TPM makes some powerful points

Unfortunately, his column is behind their paywall but here are two key paragraphs:

I’ve mentioned a few times in recent weeks – in the Editors’ Blog and the Podcast – how my own perceptions of the NYPD have been heavily influenced by the NYPD’s police unions. If you listen to the statements of the city’s police union leadership, the impression is of an organization that is far-right in its political sensibilities, contemptuous of civilian political authority and generally sees the residents of the city and their elected officials as answering to the NYPD rather than the other way around. In this case, this whole thing was apparently bogus but there’s no apology from the people making the accusations and I suspect there never will be.

The NYPD is a fairly diverse force. 47% of the force is non-white. At the patrol officers level it’s 53% non-white. It gets much less diverse higher up the chain. But relative to other forces and compared to the past. The leadership of the unions, on the other hand, appears to be universally white and Irish and with political views from the 1950s. Recently the head of the Sergeants Union declared he was “going to war” with the mayor and during the recent protests told members of his union they were fighting a war against New York City, a battle between good and evil in which they answered to a higher power than the city government. “You work for a higher authority. It’s good against evil and good always wins.”

(snip)

I don’t know just what the story is or the sociology behind the relationship between the force at large and the unions that represents it collectively. But they are at a minimum tightly connected and the leadership relies on the support of the rank and file. There’s something basically wrong with the culture, something that makes the trust of the community – even from fairly privileged members of the community – hard to sustain.

The rest of the column is here:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/assassination-hoax-brings-milk-shakes-to-the-yard

[George II]

17. There was also a fake photo on Twitter of a woman cop who was "mutilated" with a "B" carved...

...(backward) in her cheek, representing "bad cop". It presumably happened at that Shake Shack.

Turns out it was a photo from 2008 used to claim (Barack) Obama supporters did it. That was faked, too.

[skypilot]

25. So, someone unearthed that 2008 photo...

...and tried to repurpose it to claim that a female cop had been attacked?

[George II]

26. Yes, everybody recognized it right away (but I didn't, I'm slow!) and pointed out that...

...she did it herself, looking at a mirror. That's why the "B" was backward.

[skypilot]

27. I remember that story from 2008.

Just surprised that someone was dumb enough to try this latest hoax using a photo from another hoax.

[WestLosAngelesGal]

19. It's been a long time, but when I worked in fast food...

...the design of the milkshake machines made them hard to clean. A milkshake is made by pouring in pre-made mix into a machine that freezes it to a certain consistency. And because they were hard to clean, we... hardly ever did it. No hate, we were teens. Anyway, the vile stuff that you clean the machine with has to run through it and you run rinse water through it a few times, too. And try not to sniff the machine because even after cleaning, there is a faint odor of spoiled milk. After refilling the machine, and it gets frozen to the right consistency, we would throw away the first 5 milkshakes or so because they tasted like the cleaning fluid. If you want to stay healthy, do not get a milkshake in a restaurant unless you can see them scooping ice cream and milk into a machine that mixes up shakes one by one in a big metal cup. Otherwise, you are drinking little bits of sanitizer.

[Aristus]

24. If the Shake Shack workers claimed there were in fear for their lives,

would that have been okay with the police?

Just asking...

[pecosbob]

28. Machines like that ususally have two cleaning solutions, a disinfecting agent, usually bleach,

which must be thoroughly removed by cleaning and a sanitizer, usually mild ammonia, which is left on the surface to dry. The bleach can make you sick, the ammonia will not. Every ice machine requires this cleaning process.