The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.16 Shake Shack Intentionally Poisoned Cops Fake News Spread Like Wildfire, MrBeast Quibi FAIL, & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards, thank you for joining me once again. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. The first thing we're going to talk about today, easily one of the most requested stories, is this story involving the police and Shake Shack. So late last night, New York City's Detectives Endowment Association publishes this safety message, noting that three officers were, quote, intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at a Shake Shack in Manhattan.

Starting point is 00:00:23 With a statement from the association's president, Paul DiGiacomo, continuing, "'After tasting the milkshakes they purchased, "'they became ill, making it necessary for them "'to go to an area hospital. "'Fortunately, our fellow officers were not seriously harmed.'" With a statement going on to say, "'The police across the country are under attack

Starting point is 00:00:37 "'by vicious criminals who dislike us "'simply because of the uniform we wear,' adding, emboldened by pandering elected officials, "'these cowards will go to great lengths "'to harm any member of law enforcement. And so to deal with all of this, he goes on to warn officers to be vigilant and not buy food from places that they are not familiar with.

Starting point is 00:00:51 And around the same time, we saw Patrick Lynch, the city's police benevolent association president, issuing a similar statement warning officers to use caution, saying, when New York City police officers cannot even take a meal without coming under attack, it is clear that environment in which we work has deteriorated at a critical level. We cannot afford to let our guard down for even a moment."

Starting point is 00:01:08 Lynch in that statement specifically claiming that the three officers who went to Shake Shack discovered that a quote, toxic substance, believed to be bleach, had been placed in their beverages. And so with these claims out there, this story just blows up. We see the likes of Fox News' Sean Hannity blasting this out.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Tommy Lahren chiming in, "'Despicable but not surprising.' The war on cops has been reignited and the left is complicit." And later adding, "'A lot of cancel culture going on lately, but let me guess. Not gonna happen to Shake Shack after one of their employees poisoned NYPD officers, right?'

Starting point is 00:01:35 Also, according to The Guardian, Donald Trump Jr. said in a now-deleted tweet, "'Where are the Democrats who are denouncing NYPD officers getting poisoned on the job?' Their silence on the issue is deafening." You had former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee tweeting, "'Will de Blavio demand that those responsible "'be charged with attempted murder of police officer?

Starting point is 00:01:50 "'If not, he should be charged with aiding and abetting.'" And these are just some of the many, many examples that there were of people just saying, you know, Shake Shack straight up poisoned cops. But of course, one of the big things to keep in mind is that there were these claims, it was being investigated. We saw reports that the NYPD was investigating. Shake Shack saying that they were horrified

Starting point is 00:02:07 by these reports, saying they were working with the police in the investigation. And what ended up happening is we saw a few hours later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted out, "'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.'"

Starting point is 00:02:23 With Shake Shack sharing that tweet, also adding that it was still working to get a full picture of what happened. We've also since seen reports saying that investigators believe the substance in their drinks was a cleaning solution that had not been fully cleared out of the milkshake machine. Then, later Tuesday morning,

Starting point is 00:02:34 we saw the Detectives Endowment Association, who of course put out that first claim, reiterating the chief's statement, tweeting, although the investigation is still ongoing, at this point, NYPD investigators have found, quote, "'No criminality in how these officers got sick.'" Initially, it was reported that whatever toxic substance made the officers ill was intentionally placed

Starting point is 00:02:49 in their drinks. Evidently, however, the toxic substance, a cleaning solution, accidentally made its way into the officers' shakes. If so, we are all relieved to hear that this was not an intentional attempt to harm our officers and are pleased to report they will make a full recovery. With the Police Benevolent Association also publishing

Starting point is 00:03:02 a similar update under their initial statement a few hours later. Right, and so this major update was then quickly met with a slew of different reactions. Right, some absolutely furious because it appears that they falsely accused Shake Shack employees of a crime. Others calling for an apology and for the original statements to be removed,

Starting point is 00:03:15 especially since there are still some out there spreading the original story. Also, you had a number of people angry or mocking those who spread the original story. Some also not believing the new reports from authorities saying that there was no criminality by Shake Shack employees saying that doesn't add up. But I will say personally,

Starting point is 00:03:28 I find that take a little bit confusing. Then I've seen a number of people imagining a situation where they went to investigate and they were like, did you do it on purpose? Did you poison them? The workers respond, no. And the authorities were like, well, I guess that's case closed.

Starting point is 00:03:39 Also a thing I want to hit on with this situation is the timing, right? Chief Rodney Harrison's tweet saying that, you know, there was a thorough investigation by the authorities. They found no criminality. That tweet went out two hours before Tommy Lahren continued to push this story, saying that a Shake Shack employee poisoned an officer.

Starting point is 00:03:55 Which also means it went out about five hours before Huckabee and Hannity continued to push the narrative. So, you know, just something to keep in mind. Anyway, what we're actually seeing now are just a whole bunch of statements being deleted. The Detectives Endowment Association has taken down their initial urgent message that laid out the accusations,

Starting point is 00:04:09 as well as their update tweet about the toxic chemical being a cleaning solution that accidentally made its way into the drinks. Meanwhile, the Police Benevolent Association removed both their initial statement and their update about investigators finding no criminality. All right, so it's genuinely confusing where things stand at this point,

Starting point is 00:04:21 and if authorities are planning to release another statement soon. But hey, ultimately, that's where we are with this story right now. It is significant because this whole situation seems to have heightened this kind of distrust people have in New York police officers. One of the main reactions I've seen online is people saying it looks like another situation where officers are lying to try to make themselves look like the victims. You know, with all that said, I do want to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts on this? Is this a misunderstanding, an outright lie? What does this do to your trust, whether it be with the authorities

Starting point is 00:04:45 or the people sharing stories? Any and all thoughts you have on this, I'd love to see in those comments down below. And then let's talk about some quickie entertainment news because we have Quibi back in the news. Welcome to the Philip DeFranco Show, the reason a third of the people who are aware of Quibi know about it.

Starting point is 00:04:58 According to reports, before the app launched, they believed that one year after they launched, they would have 7 million paying subscribers. But according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, it appears that they are currently on track to have under two million paying subscribers by that time. This despite the fact that a company spokesperson said the app has been downloaded five million times.

Starting point is 00:05:15 And the thing is, I've said it before, initially kind of as a joke, you know, in the past, I was like, Quibi, give me money for my show. But to expand on that joke, even though I would definitely still take your money, I don't feel like they've made the right partnerships yet. In general, they're taking so many of these mainstream people and being like,

Starting point is 00:05:27 "'Hey, make short form content, six to seven minutes.'" And meanwhile, obviously I'm biased here, you look to YouTube and you see so many fantastic creators that crush it at the six to seven minute mark, with huge fan bases built in audience, and you could potentially throw some money at them and go like, hey, what could you do with a budget? And it appears that Quibi may actively be against this idea.

Starting point is 00:05:44 And the reason I say that is someone from the New Yorker tweeted out, how would you fix Quibi? Blake Robbins responds, put David Dobrik's vlogs exclusively on Quibi with an actual release schedule. Also give Mr. Beast a massive budget and watch him create magic. And one of the responses to that came from Reed Dusher, who's the president of a management company

Starting point is 00:05:58 called Knight Media that also reps Mr. Beast. And he said, we tried, they said no. Which in my opinion is absolutely insane, especially for a company that is as well connected as it is and raised close to $2 billion. Though in the very near future, they may be in a not so great money situation. According to reports, the company itself estimates

Starting point is 00:06:17 that by the third quarter of this year, it'll have spent $1 billion of the $1.75 billion it has raised. Also, it's being reported that their advertisers, not too happy. Major marketers like PepsiCo, Taco Bell, Anheuser-Busch, InBev, and Walmart, who reportedly made multi-million dollar

Starting point is 00:06:31 ad commitments pre-launch, are now trying to renegotiate those commitments because of low viewership and the economic toll of the coronavirus. And so I say to you, Quibi, what do you have to lose that you're not already on track to lose? Embrace some YouTubers that wanna do

Starting point is 00:06:42 some cool stuff with a budget. And I also mean that in a non-self-serving sort of way. I see that you have news on the app, given what it looks like, I imagine it underperforms for you. There's a lot of talented people out there that I'd be throwing money at if I was in your position. And then, you know, we had more police news,

Starting point is 00:06:54 though this specifically about police reform. You know, we have things like last week, we talked about Minneapolis' city council voting to dismantle the city's police department and make a new system for public safety. On kind of a smaller scale, but still very important, yesterday we talked about how Louisville's city council unanimously voted to ban no-knock warrants, right?

Starting point is 00:07:09 And also requiring their police officers to wear body cameras when serving warrants. But it's not just Minneapolis and Louisville making these types of moves, we're seeing it everywhere. For example, last night we saw the Baltimore City Council voting to slash next year's police budget by $22 million. That is now headed to the mayor's desk. Yesterday we saw New York City Police Commissioner

Starting point is 00:07:25 Dermot Shea announcing that he would be disbanding the NYPD's anti-crime units. Right, and those units are made up of plainclothes teams that target violent crimes. Also notably, they've been involved in some of the city's most notorious police shootings. And because of that, Shea said that these plainclothes units were part of an outdated policing model,

Starting point is 00:07:39 calling this a remnant of the city's stop and frisk policies, which disproportionately affected people of color. Also saying they too often pitted officers against their communities, with Shea going on to say that because the NYPD now depends more on intelligence gathering and technology to fight crime, it can move away from brute force. Now regarding the roughly 600 officers

Starting point is 00:07:56 who serve in those units, Shea said they will be reassigned immediately to other duties such as the detective bureau and the department's neighborhood policing initiative. But also just to be clear here, plain clothes units that work in the city's transit system as well as other divisions of the NYPD will remain. But still, following this announcement,

Starting point is 00:08:09 we saw of course some people happy, others cautiously optimistic, others not convinced or upset for different reasons. For example, you had Darius Charney, a staff lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, saying, for this change to have any meaningful impact on how communities experience policing in New York City, these former anti-crime officers will need to change the way they police communities of color

Starting point is 00:08:26 and nothing the commissioner said gives me any confidence that the NYPD has a plan to make sure that happens. But of course we've also seen people like Patrick Lynch who we mentioned earlier. He criticized the move in general saying, "'Anti-crime's mission was to protect New Yorkers "'by proactively preventing crime, especially gun violence. "'Shooting and murders are both climbing steadily upward,

Starting point is 00:08:44 "'but our city leaders have clearly decided that proactive policing isn't a priority anymore. And all of this is happening around the same time that the New York City Council has also unveiled a list of proposals that would slash $1 billion from the NYPD's $6 billion budget. And among those proposals, it includes eliminating overtime, removing the school safety division from the NYPD's purview,

Starting point is 00:09:01 and reducing uniform headcount. Then, in Albuquerque, New Mexico yesterday, you had Mayor Tim Keller saying that he plans to create a new city department to focus on community safety. Notably, that department will be designed as an alternative option to dispatching police or firefighters and paramedics whenever someone calls 911.

Starting point is 00:09:14 Very notably there, that department would be made up of social workers and other civilian professionals who would focus on things like violence prevention, mental health, and homelessness. Right, so the general idea here is you would dispatch the right resources depending on the nature of the call. Right, so you'd still have police officers for a reported violent crime,

Starting point is 00:09:28 but you'd have this new department for non-violent crimes and handling social needs. And you know, this idea of having mental health professionals respond to calls like this has actually been one of the big rallying points for protesters. Right, with many arguing that police shouldn't be responding to these types of calls. And that's why you have people like Keller

Starting point is 00:09:40 telling the Associated Press, it is fascinating that given all the challenges in America over the last 100 years on a number of fronts, when it comes to public safety, we still just think there's two departments, police and fire in every city. I think fundamentally, this could be a new model for how we look at public safety response

Starting point is 00:09:54 in cities across the country. However, of course, at the same time, we've seen some pushback here, with one of the unknowns being where exactly is the money that's going to fund this new department going to come from? Also, how much will it be? Can this make economic sense?

Starting point is 00:10:04 So, according to the Washington Post, city staff will be reviewing budgets for multiple departments, including the police, to find tens of millions of dollars to fund the new agency. And in fact, the city's already identified 10% of the city's public safety budget, two thirds of which goes to the police department. However, Keller has also promised

Starting point is 00:10:17 that he won't take money away from core police work or court mandated reforms already underway. With Keller also going on to say that this new department won't change any of our approach with respect to addressing crime from all sides, and that also includes hiring more officers. We have to do that. But of course there we also have to address

Starting point is 00:10:30 two of the major demands that we've seen from protesters over the last couple of weeks. You have defund the police and or abolish the police. And because of that, we've seen people like Barron Jones, a senior political strategist with the ACLU of New Mexico, expressing some concern, saying that this isn't really a plan to defund the police force and adding, "'While we appreciate the efforts of the mayor

Starting point is 00:10:45 "'to set up a system where it decreases the likelihood "'of armed police officials responding to calls, "'how is it going to be funded "'and will it have a strong mechanism of accountability?' Right, so we have that, we then jump to California where we've seen police unions for the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Jose unveiling plans for a reform agenda.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Notably, that agenda includes finding racist police officers to root those individuals out of the law enforcement profession. Also calling for the creation of a national database of former police officers who were fired for gross misconduct to keep other agencies from hiring them. And among other things, these unions are calling for ongoing and frequent training of police officers as well as the creation of a national use of force standard. Also, within these cities themselves, we've seen San Francisco Mayor London Breed proposing major changes to SFPD's responsibilities. Saying she wants them to stop responding to issues like disputes between neighbors, reports about homeless people in school discipline interventions. With Breed also directing the police department to write a policy banning the use of military-grade weapons

Starting point is 00:11:33 against unarmed civilians. For example things like tear gas, bayonets, tanks. The city has also previously banned chokeholds and requires officers to intervene if they see other officers engaging in excessive force. And in LA specifically the City council is actually expected to meet today to discuss a proposal that would slash 100 to $150 million from the LAPD's budget for the next fiscal year. And then finally, on this topic, it brings us to President Trump today,

Starting point is 00:11:55 who signed an executive order in response to these calls to defund the police. Now this order is largely shaped by a few things. First, it set financial incentives for police departments to meet certain standards on the use of force. Right, if they meet those standards, they'll be given access to federal grant money. Secondly, it will financial incentives for police departments to meet certain standards on the use of force. Right, if they meet those standards, they'll be given access to federal grant money. Secondly, it will create a national registry

Starting point is 00:12:09 for tracking officers with credible abuses so that those officers do not simply go from one department to the next. Third, it encourages mental health professionals to be utilized by departments and sent on some nonviolent calls. Much of that would reportedly be geared towards calls relating to mental health, homelessness, and addiction.

Starting point is 00:12:21 Though, here, this isn't exactly what Albuquerque is doing. These social workers would actually be sent along with uniformed police addiction. Though, here this isn't exactly what Albuquerque is doing. These social workers would actually be sent along with uniformed police officers. Also, during this announcement, we saw Trump say that his order would specifically ban police chokeholds unless an officer's life was in danger. Though there, we've already started to see some criticism with people like Reverend Al Sharpton saying,

Starting point is 00:12:37 "'Trump's executive order is toothless and meaningless. "'We don't need studies. "'We need police that commit crimes to be punished. "'All police that use chokeholds "'claim their lives were threatened. "'What's new?'' One of the really notable things and criticisms we saw coming from people is that this order doesn't address We need police that commit crimes to be punished. All police that use chokeholds claim their lives were threatened. What's new? One of the really notable things

Starting point is 00:12:46 and criticisms we saw coming from people is that this order doesn't address larger concerns about systemic racism and racial profiling within law enforcement. Although notably we saw the president urging Congress to pass police reform. Actually regarding potential legislation right now, we're seeing House Democrats proposing a sweeping packet.

Starting point is 00:13:00 One that would ban police chokeholds, make it easier for victims of police violence to sue officers and departments, and create a national database of police misconduct, among other measures. Hey, ultimately, that's where we are with this story right now. And of course, with it, I do want to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts about the changes that we're seeing, the proposed legislation? Any and all thoughts you have on this, I'd love to see in those comments down below. And that is where I'm going to end today's show. And hey, as always, thank you for being a part of this, liking the video, sharing it, maybe even being a part of that conversation

Starting point is 00:13:26 in the comments down below. Also, if you're looking for more to watch right now, I got that brand new clip I just released, or maybe you missed yesterday's Philip DeFranco show, you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch either of those right now. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in,

Starting point is 00:13:39 I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow. I hope you like this video, subscribe if you like it.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.16 Shake Shack Intentionally Poisoned Cops Fake News Spread Like Wildfire, MrBeast Quibi FAIL, & More

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