As retail theft and other crimes impact communities across the United States, businesses have been forced to take drastic measures including placing commonly stolen items behind locked plexiglass or closing stores altogether in particularly hard-hit neighborhoods.

While such decisions might make sense when viewed from the standpoint of protecting property and the safety of customers and staff, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) is not willing to give one pharmacy chain the benefit of the doubt.

Instead, the lawmaker, who is associated with a far-left group of House Democrats known as “the Squad,” took to the floor of Congress this week to rail against Walgreens for closing stores beset by unsustainable levels of brazen theft.

The Massachusetts Democrat did not address the rampant crime that has plagued communities across her district and state for years but took direct aim at a business for determining that it could no longer maintain its store in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood.

She accused the chain of committing “disruptive, life-threatening acts of racial and economic discrimination” since the community in question “is 85% Black and Latino.”

The lawmaker’s screed omitted the fact that crime statistics show a whopping 92% of American neighborhoods are safer than Roxbury.

Pressley went on to insist that the closure of the drug store “is part of a larger trend of abandoning low-income communities like the previous closures in Mattapan and Hyde Park” elsewhere in the crime-ridden district she represents.

Crime Grade gave Roxbury and F for theft, with Mattapan and Hyde Park scoring only marginally better with a D-minus and D, respectively.

“When a Walgreens leaves a neighborhood, they disrupt the entire community,” the congresswoman complained. “And they take with them baby formula, diapers, asthma inhalers, life-saving medications and, of course, jobs.”

“Businesses should be forced to operate at a loss in jurisdictions that do everything possible to make those businesses unprofitable and create conditions that threaten the safety of their employees."

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 31, 2024

Going on to insist that Walgreens is “not innocent” in the matter, she claimed that there was not “adequate notice to customers,” though the company did automatically transfer existing prescriptions to another store a short distance away and even offered free delivery for 90 days after the store’s closure.

Nevertheless, Pressley determined that the company deserved to be publicly chided, adding: “Shame on you, Walgreens.”