Local News in Brief : Man, 18, Charged in Racial Incident

An 18-year-old man, accused of driving a car toward a group of Latinos in Sepulveda last month, has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said Thursday.

Peter John McGurk of Sepulveda, who police say is a member of the Skinheads, a neo-Nazi gang, was also charged Wednesday with reckless driving and driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol in the Nov. 11 incident at the intersection of Parthenia Street and Columbus Avenue, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office said.

Police said the car McGurk was driving swerved at two groups of people at the corner. Two passengers in the car--Robert Rufus Renney, 26, and a 17-year-old boy--yelled ethnic slurs and sprayed the pedestrians with a fire extinguisher, police said.

Renney, sentenced last summer to 45 days in jail for posting anti-Semitic stickers on a Studio City bank, has been charged with assault and violating probation in the November incident. He remains at the Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $12,000 bail. McGurk was released after his arrest on $2,000 bail. The juvenile was released to his parents.