Truth is famously the first casualty in any war. And with the police rank outsiders to win any national popularity contests right now, it’s unlikely that the assertions of one of their number will be widely taken on trust.
When an LAPD cop reported finding a tampon in his Starbucks Frappucino, his police union roundly condemned the incident as a “disgusting assault.”
But many social media users believe the officer’s claim lacks credibility.
The very latest “Tampongate” – this one nothing to do with Prince Charles and Camilla – allegedly unravelled last Friday at around 2.30 p.m. at a Starbucks located inside a Target store in Diamond Bar, California, a city in Los Angeles County.
The 36-year-old off-duty cop was halfway through his refreshing iced-coffee drink when he found what he thought was a tampon in the cup, according to a police report.
Although the officer was not in uniform at the time, he paid for the drink with his police union debit card.
The irate cop went back inside to confront staff after making the grim discovery, according to Fox11.
The LAPD union denounced what it considered a deliberate attack in a statement to Fox11 reporter Bill Melugin.
“This disgusting assault on a police officer was carried out by someone with hatred in their heart and who lacks human decency. We hope they are publicly exposed, fired, arrested, and prosecuted for their cowardly and repugnant actions,” the union said.
Yet many on social media were quick to ridicule the officer’s report, together with the accompanying photographic evidence.
One methodical Twitter user conducted a crazy experiment on their own Starbucks Frap – submerging an actual tampon in the drink to demonstrate that it would look somewhat different to the object purportedly fished out of the cop’s cup.
Some believed it would be almost impossible for an employee to carry out such a cop-hating stunt do with so little time for each order and co-workers milling around.
Others pointed out the unlikelihood that a server would recognize the customer as a police officer just from his police union debit card.
Target, which employs the workers at the Starbucks in its store, said it had not found any evidence to corroborate the officer’s claim.
“We have reviewed video footage and have not found any suspicious behavior,” the retail chain said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
The investigation into “the alleged poisoning of food or drink at a local business” was still “ongoing”, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday morning.
California’s Tampongate follows last week’s NYPD milkshake “poisoning” scandal, in which unsubstantiated claims of anti-police targeting escalated after three officers received a bad batch of Shake Shack shakes.