Ex-Teacher in Killing Claims Self-Defense : Slaying: Former North Hollywood instructor is charged with helping gang members commit murder.

A former North Hollywood Middle School teacher charged with helping gang members commit a murder testified Monday that he acted in self-defense, batting a pistol from the hand of the victim’s brother before the brothers were swallowed up by a murderous mob.

“He was sucked into a mass of people,” said Denneth T. Jackson, 27, who was giving a party in his Reseda apartment for some of those gang members minutes before the beating.

Jackson, who is scheduled to return to the stand today, is expected to be the final witness in his murder trial.

Prosecutors contend that Jackson led a double life as both teacher and gang member. They contend that he and several fellow gang members who were among the party-goers beat Julio Aguilar, 23, and his younger brother Jose, 21, with a baseball bat and pieces of wood on Nov. 12, 1994.

The attack was for revenge, because Jose Aguilar had earlier that day crashed his car into a parked truck belonging to one of the party-goers.

Julio Aguilar later died of his injuries.

But Monday, Jackson denied gang membership. He portrayed himself instead as a do-gooder who invited gang members to his apartment one Friday night to keep them off the streets and then found himself swept up by events beyond his control.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino disputed Jackson’s claim that he acted in self-defense, pointing out that he never told arresting officers that Jose Aguilar had pointed a gun at him, and that three witnesses had testified Jackson was an active participant in the beatings of both men.

“I believe he deserves an Academy Award for best performance in a courtroom,” D’Agostino said in an interview. She will cross-examine Jackson today.

After he himself was first viciously beaten and then shot by gang members in his youth, Jackson dedicated his life to reaching out to troubled teens, he testified. Following in both his parents’ footsteps, he became a middle school teacher, starting at Madison Middle School in North Hollywood in September of 1994.

Two months later he invited a small group of gang members he knew to his apartment to keep them off the street, and was startled when 40 to 50 people showed up, Jackson testified Monday. More than 80 bottles of beer were drunk at the bash, which ran several hours, and gang graffiti were found in Jackson’s apartment later that week.

About 12:30 a.m., a car driven by a drunken Julio Aguilar struck a parked pickup belonging to one of the party-goers. Witnesses testified that Jackson pulled his guests off Aguilar and that the partyers called police.

Aguilar was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, but two hours later his 21-year-old brother Jose and an uncle bailed him out of jail and drove in a sports car to Jackson’s apartment house to inspect the damage.

“Within seconds,” witness Jack Ibrahim, whose mother manages the building, testified earlier in the trial, “the car was surrounded by at least 15 to 20 youths. . . . They forced open the door, and [Jackson] was throwing kicks at the driver.”

The attackers pulled the brothers out, Ibrahim testified. “The person who really surprised me was Denneth Jackson. He was yelling, screaming, punching, beating, laughing. . . . He was enjoying himself.”

But Jackson testified Monday that he merely swatted a gun from Jose Aguilar’s hand and pulled him from the car to keep him away from the pistol before the gang members pounced.

Unaware of the extent to which the Aguilars were beaten, and fearing for his own safety, he returned to his apartment while the fight continued, Jackson testified Monday.

“It was wild. There were people running, people screaming. There were bangs and booms,” Jackson testified of the chaos that surrounded the killing.

Seven people, including Jackson, were charged with the killing; except for Jackson, they all pleaded no contest to charges of voluntary manslaughter and accepted 11-year prison sentences.

Throughout the monthlong trial, the 10-man, two-woman Superior Court jury has been presented with two faces of Denneth Jackson--the vengeful adult gang member portrayed by prosecutors, and the defense portrayal of a community minded teacher who preached peace to troubled youths and founded scholarship programs.

Jackson grew up in Reseda straddling two worlds, he testified Monday--the hardscrabble life of the streets of his own neighborhood and the more privileged confines of the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, where he attended junior high and high school.

Defense attorney Michael White called a parade of character witnesses during the trial to describe how Jackson spent hundreds of hours registering immigrants to vote and trying to dissuade youths from joining gangs.

D’Agostino confronted each one with photographs police seized from Jackson’s closet, showing him holding a pistol and making what police call gang hand signals. The pictures were taken when Jackson was 16 to 20 years old.

Joanna G. Kunes, the principal of Madison Middle School who hired Jackson, was visibly disturbed by the photographs when they were shown to her as she testified last week.

“Evidently, something connected with his background, neighborhood, associates, had affected him in a very negative way,” she said.