SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : Teacher, 6 Others Plead Not Guilty in Slaying

A North Hollywood middle school teacher and six other men pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Van Nuys Municipal Court to charges that they killed a Reseda man who accidentally drove into a parked pickup truck owned by a guest attending a party in the teacher’s apartment.

Many of the guests were gang members and teen-agers who were drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, Los Angeles police said.

Denneth Thaddeus Jackson and the others were charged with using pool cues and chunks of wood, as well as their fists and feet, to beat to death Julio Aguilar, 23. The dead man’s brother, Jose Aguilar, 21, who was also beaten, remained in serious condition Tuesday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, police said.

At Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, where Jackson was popular with students as a history teacher in the seventh and ninth grades, counselor Stephanie Palmer said, “The students are distressed. . . . They can’t reconcile the image of Mr. Jackson the teacher with the Mr. Jackson that could have done this.”