NYPD Finds No Criminal Wrongdoing In Case Of Police Officer Who Drank Bleach-Tainted Shakes At Shake Shack

A New York Police Department (NYPD) investigation has revealed that there was no criminal wrongdoing in a case in which 3 officers got sick from bleach poisoning after drinking milkshakes from Shake Shack, CNN reported.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, on Monday night the news broke that 3 NYPD officers had fallen ill and required hospitalization after drinking milkshakes from Shake Shack, a burgers-and-fries fast casual restaurant with most of its U.S. locations in and around the New York City area. The officers reportedly drank shakes tainted with bleach, and were sent to the hospital. None of the officers were severely ill enough to require overnight hospitalization, and all were treated and released.

Almost immediately, the news was framed within the narrative that the officers had been deliberately poisoned. For example, the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York tweeted that the officers had been deliberately poisoned in a malicious attack.

“When NYC police officers cannot even take meal without coming under attack, it is clear that environment in which we work has deteriorated to a critical level. We cannot afford to let our guard down for even a moment,” the group tweeted.

Further, the purported attack came at a time when the relationships between police departments and their constituents, in New York City and elsewhere, have been strained in the wake of the George Floyd protests. In some cases, those protests have resulted in violence against police, while police officers have also been criticized for employing heavy-handed tactics to quell the protests.

As it turns out, the officers do not appear to have been deliberately poisoned. NYPD Detective Chief Rodney Harrison tweeted on Tuesday morning that there was “no criminality” in the incident.

“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,” he tweeted.

The poisoning was deemed to have almost certainly been accidental. The most likely scenario appears to be that a cleaning solution used to clean the machines that produced the milkshakes was not properly flushed out, resulting in an undetermined amount of the substance making it into the officers’ drinks.

In a tweet Tuesday morning, the company said that it is “relieved” that all of the sickened officers are OK, and that it is trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

According to Healthline, even small amounts of bleach can be toxic when ingested, and it can be fatal when ingested in larger amounts.