NYPD police unions accuse Shake Shack employees of poisoning 3 officers. NYPD finds no wrongdoing.

New York City's police union claimed Monday night that three NYPD detectives were "intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack." That didn't turn out to be true, the NYPD later clarified.

The officers, at some point during their dinner, "discovered that a toxic substance, believed to be bleach, had been placed in their beverages," Police benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch wrote in a warning to fellow officers. "When New York City 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."

"Tonight, three of our brothers in blue were intentionally poisoned," Detectives Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo wrote in a similar warning. "Fortunately, our fellow officers were not seriously harmed."

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The NYPD sent its Crime Scene Unit to the restaurant, and they found two of the three partially consumed milkshakes in the trash and interrogated the employees. "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," Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted early Tuesday. Shake Shack tweeted its relief.

"Police sources said the case has been deemed unintentional after it appeared that whatever cleaning solution was used on the shake machine wasn't rinsed off enough," the New York Post reports. The officers "were taken to Bellevue Hospital and have since been released."

It is clearly possible that this was all just a misunderstanding, with the police unions jumping the gun and stoking public outrage before all the facts were in. But there is also an odd history of police falsely accusing fast-food workers of various kinds of abuse.