Government

Shake Shack Manager Sues Cops Who Claimed Poisoned Milkshakes

Remember how much last summer sucked?

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(Image via Getty)

It’s not funny … but, at the same time, it’s a little bit funny.

It’s truly horrible that three NPYD officers convinced themselves that there was something off about their Shake Shack order last summer, arrested the manager, and turned the restaurant into a crime scene. Then their benevolent associations made matters worse by tweeting out bogus accusations that cops had been deliberately poisoned, triggering a wave of hostility directed at the restaurant and its manager, the plaintiff.

At the same time, it’s mildly hilarious that there’s a federal lawsuit against “Officer Strawberry Shake,” “Officer Vanilla Shake,” and “Officer Cherry Shake.” Also “NYPD Sergeant who stated When Did You Add The Bleach” and “NYPD Sergeant Who called in ESU.”

But there’s probably nothing comedic about these events for Marcus Gilliam, the 28-year-old manager at the Fulton Center Shake Shack, who was detained and interrogated after three cops placed an anonymous order via an app, found their drinks prepared when they walked in the store, threw them out after detecting a “sour” taste, accepted complimentary food vouchers from the manager, then sounded the alarm back at the station, sending dozens of cops and technicians down to investigate the “crime scene.”

An NYPD Lieutenant sent out a blast email erroneously claiming that the officers were vomiting and undergoing treatment in hospital, after which the Detective’s Endowment Association fired off a tweet alleging that the officers had been “intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack at 200 Broadway in Manhattan.” The president of the Police Benevolent Association followed up with a tweet of his own, stating that “a toxic substance, believed to be bleach, had been placed in their beverages” and decrying the anti-police environment in the tumultuous period after the murder of George Floyd.

“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,” PBA President Patrick Lynch wrote. “We cannot afford to let our guard down for even a moment.”

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Of course, there was nothing in the drinks, and Gilliam and his staff had no opportunity to target the police even if they’d wanted to. But after the PBA and DEA drew a target on their backs, Shake Shack employees faced weeks of abuse by members of the public.

So Gilliam is suing all of the above parties plus the City of New York for false arrest and defamation.

“They treated him like he was a cop killer, basically,” Gilliam’s lawyer, Elliot Shields, told the New York Daily News. “They just jumped to this conclusion with no evidence. They tried to fit this episode into this false narrative of the police being under attack, and it was outrageous.”

But not everything that’s “outrageous” is a legally cognizable injury, though. So, we’ll have to wait and see if the rancid milkshake duck cops get their just desserts.

Gilliam v. Lynch [Docket via Court Listener]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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