6-Month Sentence Issued in Racially Motivated Assault

In what a prosecutor called a warning to white supremacist groups, an Oregon man was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail for spraying a group of Latinos with a fire extinguisher from a passing car in the San Fernando Valley while yelling, “White power.”

Robert Rufus Renney, 26, suspected of being a member of the Skinheads, a neo-Nazi gang, pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor count of assault with a deadly weapon and to violating probation on an earlier conviction for a racially motivated crime.

Van Nuys Municipal Court Judge Robert Swasey also sentenced Renney to three years’ probation and ordered him not to engage in violence or place racist stickers or hate slogans on public or private property.

Sentence Called Warning

Deputy City Atty. Jessica Perrins Silvers, who prosecuted the case, said the sentence was designed to “serve as a warning that these types of hate-motivated crimes are going to be prosecuted vigorously.”

Renney could have received a maximum sentence of one year in jail.

The assault charge stems from a Nov. 11 attack on a group of pedestrians at Columbus Avenue and Parthenia Street in Sepulveda.

Renney, a transient from Pendleton, Ore., was a passenger in a car that swerved into the Latinos, forcing them to scatter. Renney then sprayed the group with the fire extinguisher while yelling racist slogans, Los Angeles police said.

Police officers in a patrol car witnessed the incident and arrested Renney, a 17-year-old youth who was riding in the car and the driver, Peter John McGurk of Sepulveda.

McGurk pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of assault with a deadly weapon, reckless driving, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs and being under the influence of cocaine. His trial on the charges is scheduled for Dec. 21 in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

No charges were filed against the juvenile.

Just Out of Jail

At the time of his arrest, Renney had just been released from jail after serving 45 days for posting swastikas and racist stickers on a Studio City bank.

In that case, Renney was arrested July 18 by police officers who were staking out the bank in response to complaints of vandalism.

Police said Renney and McGurk are part of a white supremacist group called the Skinheads, whose members shave their heads and wear black combat boots.

The youths are not members of the Reich Skins, a white supremacist group suspected in a series of other racially motivated attacks in the San Fernando Valley in recent months, police said.