Terrible journalism. The cop was NOT "punish" over a sandwich.
1) Police are frequently scheduled to work different shifts. It is not uncommon for someone to be switched from a day shift to a night shift for no reason than that the boss needs someone to work that shift and your number came up. The article doesn't even say definitively that the shift change was a punishment at all.
2) IF it was a "punishment," it is clear that the infraction was the "words" that were "spoken with two lesbian officers." What the officer may or may not have said is what the issue, not the sandwich. I can easily see two possible scenarios, either of which is possible:
Perhaps the officer came in, sat down, ready to enjoy his delicious chicken sandwich, and two lesbian officers started yelling at him "You homophobe! How dare you eat something from Chick-Fil-A!" Why he was eating in the briefing room instead of the lunch room I don't know -- maybe at this particular station, the briefing room is also the lunch room. But that is certainly a possible scenario, and the one the journalist is trying to paint this into.
Equally possible, however:
During the morning's briefing, a time when officers are not supposed to be eating, but paying attention, this particular officer brought in his Chick-Fil-A bag and made a big deal about how proud he was to eat a sandwich made by good, Christian, values that know all gays are going to hell. Perhaps he was aware that two of his fellow officers were lesbians, and even made some derogatory comments to them. I'm not saying that this is how it happened, but it could have been, and the article says nothing that contradicts such a scenario.
More likely, it was somewhere in between the two extreme stories above. The only question is, is the reporter just really bad, or is he or she purposely leaving out important facts of the story to twist it, spin it to a certain point of view? Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes, I see so much incompetence I can't tell when it's genuine and when it's just an excuse for rude behavior.