I don’t know if we’re supposed to feel anger or pity over someone stealing baby formula from stores across Orange County.
If the chemically created mommy juice is needed for a desperate soul’s hungry child or children, I would say one should not steal but, to twist the words of Chris Rock, I understand.
When it comes to the Irvine Police Department’s search for a female who helped steal about $300 worth of baby formula from the Target store at 900 Spectrum Center Dr., it must be pointed out that the same person is believed to have pulled similar local thefts that resulted is losses exceeding $2,000.
That would seem to be an awful lot of baby formula, although I must admit I have not priced that commodity in some time. Hold a sec … OK, four 8.45 fluid ounce cartons of Gerber Good Start, ready-to-use infant formula go for $7.59 at Stater Bros., where the store hauls in $40 per 20.5-ounce tub of Enfamil Enspire infant formula powder.
Investigators believe Sajaunte Maurice Burks, 23, of San Diego, was with the female holding a child in surveillance video from around 10 a.m. May 18 at the Irvine Spectrum Target store.
The same day as that theft, Burks was arrested for allegedly stealing formula at an Anaheim Target store, resulting in a nearly $800 loss.
Irvine cops also point out that on May 17, someone stole more than $1,000 worth of formula from a Target in Mission Viejo, suggesting that Burks and the female with kid are suspects there, too.
Thus, the release of the images that Irvine Police hope will jog someone’s memory and lead to the identity of the female in the Target surveillance video. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Matt Ricci at 949.724.7189 or
mr****@ci**********.org
.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.