Syringe-Wielding Robber Uses Threat of AIDS in 7 Holdups

A thief who has been threatening merchants and others in the San Fernando Valley with a hypodermic syringe that he claims contains his own AIDS-tainted blood struck four more times Wednesday, bringing the total of incidents to seven in three days.

None of the confrontations have resulted in injury. Dr. Thomas L. Horowitz, chairman of the Los Angeles County Commission on AIDS, urged potential robbery victims not to panic, saying that the odds of getting AIDS from a fleeting needle prick is less than one in 250.

“It is a low-risk threat,” he said. “But definitely his threat is playing on people’s paranoia.”

Los Angeles police hoped that videotaped images of the tall, blond mustachioed man--obtained as he held up a 7-Eleven store before dawn Wednesday--might lead to his identification if seen in newspapers or on television.

Officers said they are confident that the same man was responsible for all of the incidents, based on witnesses’ descriptions of the man shown on the videotape. The thief is belileved to be driving a gray, 1983 Mercury Capri that he stole by brandishing the needle in Northridge on Monday, said Police Lt. John M. Dunkin.

Police and witnesses said the 7-Eleven robbery at 5 a.m., the first of the day, employed the same basic technique as all the others: The man displayed a hypodermic syringe as he confronted his victims, said he had AIDS and threatened or implied that he could infect them.

“He just pointed the needle and ran toward them,” said Anju Haniffa, owner of the store in the 8700 block of Lindley Avenue in Northridge.

Haniffa said his clerk, Jim Kudaligama, and a customer fled. The thief, unable to gain access to the locked cash register, stole eight cartons of cigarettes worth about $150, police said.

About six hours later, the man went to Flooky’s Hot Dogs in the 8700 block of Corbin Avenue in Northridge, where he once again displayed a needle and sought money.

“He comes in with a needle and he says, ‘Uh, I have an AIDS-infected needle. I don’t want to hurt anybody,’ ” said Stuart Hoffenberg, who owns the fast-food franchise with his father. “My father said, ‘Why don’t you wait outside so you don’t have any problems?’ He gave him $2 and the guy left.”

Hoffenberg said the man appeared to be under the influence of drugs because he walked very slowly and had slurred speech. Hoffenberg also said his initial reaction, before his father persuaded the man to step outside, had been to reach for a butcher knife he was using to prepare food.

“But if he had AIDS, I didn’t want the blood around. That’s why I didn’t cut him,” Hoffenberg said.

Horowitz, the physician, said that “in light of the prevalence of store owners being willing to defend themselves, I don’t think this is a person who is dealing with a full deck” because he is “giving someone an excuse to use lethal force against him.”

Horowitz also said the man’s slow movements and the advance warnings he reportedly gave robbery victims gave them “time to respond in an effort to avoid being stuck.”

He added that the chances of infection from being squirted by blood were also unlikely because within 20 minutes of being drawn into a syringe, blood clots to the point that it is difficult or impossible to squirt.

Fifteen minutes after leaving Flooky’s, the man frightened the owner of Patsy’s Minimarket in the 8700 block of Corbin Avenue in Northridge, where he took an undetermined amount of money from the cash register. Ten minutes later, he struck a business in the 20100 block of Saticoy, police said, releasing no other details.

On Monday, he obtained the car and $40 in cash after threatening victims on two street corners and a small produce store, also in Northridge.

Dunkin, the police spokesman, said he could recall fights in which participants threatened each other with AIDS infections. But he said this appeared to be the first case of the use of a purportedly AIDS-infected needle as a weapon during robberies.

In New York City in 1989, 10 teen-age girls were charged with jabbing women with pins during 41 random street attacks. The pins were not infected.