Man Making AIDS Threat Holds Up Hawthorne Store

A man brandishing what he claimed was a vial of AIDS-infected blood held up a Hawthorne market Wednesday evening, but police said he probably was not the same man who used a similar scheme to rob eight San Fernando Valley businesses this week.

Police said the suspect escaped with $20 after holding up the vial and telling the owner of Friendly Market, “Give me money. AIDS blood.”

Police said the suspect, a white male about 30 years old with shoulder-length hair, matched the general description of the Valley suspect, and information on the Hawthorne incident was forwarded to Los Angeles Police Department detectives in the Valley.

Nonetheless, investigators said the Hawthorne robbery was probably a copycat of the Valley incidents. The Valley suspect has held a hypodermic syringe that he claimed contained his own AIDS-infected blood.

“It seems unlikely it’s the same person,” Hawthorne Police Lt. Jan Ogden said. “Because of the media coverage it would be easy to copycat this. Northridge is quite a distance from Hawthorne.”

The owner of the Yukon Avenue store who was confronted by the man said in an interview Thursday that he was not really scared but gave the man the money out of sympathy.

“I heard about this kind of crime from Radio Korea yesterday so I thought to myself this guy is imitating what was on TV,” said the owner, speaking in Korean.

“I wasn’t scared. I thought of beating him up, but when I looked at him I felt sorry for him. . . . I gave him $20 and told him to go away. He left without causing any more noise.”

There was a video camera in the store, but it was turned off at the time of the robbery. Video photographs of the Valley suspect were widely distributed by police Wednesday after the man robbed a 7-Eleven store before dawn.

Times staff photographer Hyungwon Kang contributed to this story.