The three cops at the center of the NYPD milkshake poisoning scandal never even got sick, and there wasnt the slightest whiff of criminality from the get-go but that didnt stop gung-ho brass from rolling out the crime scene tape and unions from dishing out empty conspiracy theories, The Post has learned.
The fullest picture yet to emerge of the incident which came amid fraught tensions between the police and public is based on records and multiple interviews with police sources.
The three officers were down from The Bronx, on protest duty in Lower Manhattan, on June 15 when they ordered the now-infamous mid-shift treats via a mobile app around 7:30 p.m., purchasing three shakes across two separate orders, sources said.
Their drinks were waiting for them when they arrived at the Shake Shack on the second floor of 200 Broadway a few minutes later. A female officer picked up her strawberry shake from the front counter, and her two male colleagues grabbed their cherry and vanilla drinks from a side counter, sources said.
Police sources explained it was clear that the workers couldnt have known cops had placed the orders since it wasnt done in person and they couldnt have dosed the drinks after the officers arrived, because they were packaged and waiting for pickup when the trio walked in.
Soon after sipping the shakes, however, the cops realized they didnt taste or smell right, so they threw the drinks in the trash and alerted a manager, who apologized and issued them vouchers for free food or drink, which they accepted, according to sources.
But when the cops told their sergeant about the incident, the supervisor called in the Emergency Service Unit to set up a crime scene at the fast-food joint for an evidence search around 9:20 p.m. nearly two hours after they first got the sour shakes.
The three were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where they were examined and released without ever showing symptoms, sources said.
The Shake Shack in the Fulton Street transit hub The Shake Shack in the Fulton Street transit hubWilliam Farrington MORE ON: NYPD NYPD searching for man who jumped off Verrazzano Bridge NYC shootings skyrocket as court closures let pistol perps walk free Why shootings are soaring across NYC NYPD cop suspended for caught-on-camera chokehold in Queens Meanwhile, a lieutenant from the Bronx blasted out an email to the unions that six cops started throwing up after drinking beverages they got from shake shack on 200 Broadway.
It was unclear why the sergeant and lieutenant escalated the situation.
Detectives easily closed the case after interviewing five employees and reviewing surveillance footage showing the shakes were made normally, sources said.
The machine was cleaned before the officers ordered, according to sources, and it still contained residual milkstone remover a typically acidic solution used to combat buildup in dairy equipment.
But by 10:45 p.m., the Detectives Endowment Association was declaring that Finest had become ill after being intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack as Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch made a show of visiting Bellevue while his union declared at 10:47 p.m. that police officers came under attack from a toxic substance, believed to be bleach.
Both messages flurried across social media, spawning a trending #BoycottShakeShack hashtag that was still being tweeted Sunday by users who appear to erroneously believe NYPD members were intentionally poisoned.
Around 3 a.m. June 16, the department was reviewing a statement on the matter, and at 4 a.m. just over eight hours after the cops picked up their shakes Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison announced on Twitter that there was no criminality.
The unions later deleted their tweets and issued statements walking back their discredited claims. Privately, they blamed the lieutenant who first raised the false alarm.