Junkies in the 80's would do exactly that, threatening you with bloody syringes and saying they had AIDS. I'm not exactly thrilled to see the same thing happening again.
Afaik that's just an urban legend 
Yep.
Errr that article has nothing to do with what I was talking about. I don't know about any urban legend concerning "madmen jamming needles into random people at public places", I'm talking about simple muggings in which a junkie would walk up to you and threaten you with a needle instead of a knife, which were extremely common in my city and I know it's not an "urban legend" because
it literally happened to me and my mom. So yeah.
Edit: even the article points out that robberies like these
did take place: "Robberies have been carried out by syringe-wielding robbers who claim to be armed with the AIDS virus and willing to stick anyone who gets in their way with the infected needle. It has to be stressed that though various robbers and muggers have claimed to have been so armed, thus far this has never proved out to be anything more than an empty threat. All syringes so employed have tested out as perfectly clean. Even so, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that claiming to be armed with an AIDS-tainted needle would generate a lot of cooperation from the people you’re trying to rob."
