Ex-Shake Shack Manager Sues N.Y.P.D. Unions Over Bogus Poison Claim

As tensions between protesters and the police grew last year, three officers said they’d been attacked with tainted milkshakes. They hadn’t.

To Marcus Gilliam, they are simply Officer Vanilla Shake, Officer Cherry Shake and Officer Strawberry Shake: three uniformed members of the Police Department who said the cold drinks they ordered one night last June at the Shake Shack he managed had made them sick. With tensions high at the time between the police and protesters amid rolling demonstrations touched off by George Floyd’s killing, the officers’ complaints that the milkshakes tasted odd quickly turned to suspicion that someone had spiked them with poison, Mr. Gilliam said. After being questioned separately at the Lower Manhattan store, Mr. Gilliam said, he and the shop’s other workers were asked to go to the local police precinct. They agreed.