Here's another “duh” story

Baby formula has become a popular item for theft. Whether it is being resold, returned for store credit or cash, or mixed with drugs, baby formula is considered a “high shrink” item.

REVEALED: The 12 shoplifters AOC defended after they stole diapers and formula are repeat offenders with arrests for assault, robbery, arson and strangulation

The accused New York City shoplifters that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezdefended as struggling families forced into a life of crime due to lack of federal support are actually repeat offenders who have lengthy rap sheets.

After a string of shoplifting thefts of retail stories in the Bronx, NYPD officers in the 44th Precinct arrested a dozen people on February 8, 9, 11 and 12. Police touted the arrest on Twitter with photos of the arresting officers and the $1,800 worth of household goods, including diapers, recovered.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the upper middle class Long Island City neighborhood in Queens and portions of the Bronx, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the arrests, suggesting that police had gone after impoverished people who were stealing to supply their own babies with diapers and formula.

‘It’s much easier to frame people who steal baby formula and medicine as monsters to be jailed than acknowledge our politics and economic priorities create conditions where people steal baby formula to survive,’ she had tweeted on Thursday.

It’s possible that AOC really believes this: certainly, she’s dumb enough, and her upper-class upbringing in Westchester may have sheltered her from what “her peeps” have been up to, but if she’d read a single news story about the subject, ever, she’d know better. Then again, she never read economic texts while “earning” a degree in economics at BU, so we shouldn’t exp3ect too much.

The ABC story is from 2011, but the targeting and theft of baby formula has been going on for decades.