3 police officers in Manhattan, City of New York, have apparently been poisoned with bleach after drinking at fast food outlet ‘Shake Shack’. The officers, who had been attending a protest in the city, noticed the bleach smell shortly after buying and beginning to drink the beverages.
All were taken to hospital but appear to not have suffered injury. The Police Benevolent Association (PBA) revealed the incident in an official statement which read:
"I am writing to alert you to yet another serious safety issue. This evening, several MOS [member of service] assigned to a protest detail in lower Manhattan took a meal at the Shake Shack location on Broadway and Fulton Street. At some point during their meal period, the MOS discovered that a toxic substance, believed to be bleach, had been placed in their beverages. The contamination was not discovered until the MOS had already ingested a portion of their beverages. They are currently at the hospital receiving treatment and are expected to recover."
While foul play has been suspected investigators believe the contamination may have more likely come from the shake machine not being rinsed properly after cleaning and that the cleaning product contaminated the drink by accident. However, the PBA did seem to believe that the poisoning was malicious and a direct attack on the officers. They said in a (now-deleted) tweet:
"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. As always, look out for each other and remember our primary mission: everyone goes home EOT."
Thereby indicating that they clearly believed the intent was to deliberately harm the officers. The Association has therefore encouraged officers to be careful when consuming food or drink from outlets when in uniform out of fear of similar events occurring again.
Shake Shack reported that they were horrified to hear that such an incident occurred at their outlet and that they would fully cooperate with any investigation. They also gave their best wishes to the poisoned officers. The company tweeted:
We are horrified by the reports of police officers injured at our 200 Broadway Shack in Manhattan. We are working with the police in their investigation right now.
— SHAKE SHACK (@shakeshack) June 16, 2020
It would appear that as the beverages moved solely from the machine, to an employee, to the officers, any intentional poisoning would have therefore have to have been carried out on all individuals drinking at Shake Shack, or have been carried out by the employee (who police have cleared). No other customers of Shake Shack have complained of any ill-effects. It is for this reason that investigators are playing down the likelihood of any deliberate action.
Detectives will release a full report in time.
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