VAN NUYS : Jury Told That Man Admitted Slaying

A reputed Pacoima gang member admitted that he fatally shot a Van Nuys man who was trying to assist his girlfriend during a purse snatching, according to witness testimony Monday.

On the first day of a Superior Court trial, a jury heard that Lamarr Deon Cooks, 18, loaned a gun to a friend and warned that it had been involved in a murder.

Ballistics tests show that the gun was used in the Oct. 27, 1991, slaying of Fernando Hernandez, 19, who was shot in the face by one assailant when he tried to catch his girlfriend, who had been knocked down by a second robber, prosecutors said. The couple was walking on the 15400 block of Vanowen Street in Van Nuys when they were approached by two men, one of whom grabbed Lillian Martinez’s purse.

Cooks, whom Los Angeles police have documented as a gang member, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted because prosecutors have alleged that he committed the murder in the course of a robbery.

Testifying as one of the first witnesses in the case, Melvin Gaston said he watched Cooks loan the gun to another man. “He said, ‘Be careful, it had something on it,’ ” Gaston testified.

When Deputy Dist. Atty. Shellie Samuels asked him to explain this statement, Gaston testified that Cooks said “something about a robbery” and that “he shot somebody with the gun in the face.”