So @NYPD deleted this before I could ask if they arrested the babies as accessories after the fact

[haele]

14. It's pathetic, but so Is the fact that baby formula and diapers are too expensive

Ten years ago, when kidlet and SIL were starting out with oldest grandchild and living with us, we bought the diapers and formula because living with us, she couldn't get WIC.
It was f'n expensive at the commissary, which was at least half the cost of even Walmart or Food for Less, if you wanted quality formula that wouldn't be spit up or diapers that wouldn't leak over everything before you could pull over to change the baby if you were going somewhere.
About $70 a month then at the commissary. Now, it's twice that. And from what I hear, the WIC allotment tends to run a week short on months, so poor parents have to keep a can of formula or bag of diapers on hand to make it to the next month, which might be an extra $50 they don't have until the baby is weaned and potty trained.
But at the swap meet, or "vendor on the corner", a parent might be able to find a reseller selling bag of diapers and can of formula for $5 - $10 each, no questions asked. This is where the shoplifters are selling their loot.

It's recently had a gang break into a church food pantry and what they took was diapers, formula, baby food and fresh produce. Guarantee this theft was going to go in the back of a van to cruise through poor neighborhoods and the working homeless encampments and "resell" to those who can't afford to get it at a grocery store.
Still, stealing from a food pantry is low.

These shoplifting gangs aren't Robin Hoods, because they are stealing to make profit off the poor and reduce inventory for the working class as they go along. They just don't.make as much profit as the big corporations do.

Haele