AIDS: Spitting with Intent to Kill

Spitting with Intent to Kill

AIDS breeds panic and paranoia wherever it strikes. Those emotions, along with some legal legerdemain, have led Michigan prosecutors to charge a carrier of the AIDS antibody with assault with intent to murder. The weapon: saliva. Authorities said that Autoworker John C. Richards, 28, scuffled with four Flint, Mich., police officers when they arrested him for drunk driving on Dec. 6. The officers said that Richards became enraged, told them he had AIDS, warned that he was going to infect them and then spat at them. Richards was ordered last week to undergo psychiatric testing.

While medical experts have found no...

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