An alleged Denver gang leader repeatedly shot a young man in a 16th Street Mall parking lot who he thought had insulted him and his gang, a Denver prosecutor said Wednesday.
Killed near the Denver Pavilions was Jerome Louis Martin, 22, who had just left a hip-hop party at Club Beyond, formerly located on an upper level of the entertainment complex.
On trial in Denver District Court is Lamar “Lil Corn” Blackwell, described by prosecutor Tim Twining as a leader of the Tre Tre Crips gang.
Blackwell’s attorney told jurors that someone else killed Martin, but Twining gave a different account in his opening statement.
“On April 5, 2006, on the 16th Street Mall, Lamar Blackwell pulled out his black handgun, intentionally pumping bullets into Jerome Martin,” Twining told the jury. “The evidence shows Blackwell is a Crip gang member.”
Twining said that Martin, who had gone to Club Beyond with friends and left at closing, was an innocent victim.
He said that another Tre Tre gang member – Cleus “Hus” Williams, who was with Blackwell at the club – will testify that Blackwell became infuriated with Martin because he believed Martin stepped on his shoes. Blackwell also believed he heard Martin making derogatory comments about the Crips.
Williams will say that Blackwell came up to him, handed him a silver handgun and told Williams he was going to “merc” Martin, Twining said.
“Lil Corn put on his glove and said, ‘I’m going to “merc” him,’ meaning he was going to shoot and kill him,” Twining told the jury.
The prosecutor said Blackwell and Williams then followed Martin and his friend, Jerome Deal. Blackwell yelled at Martin, “What did you say back there? What did you say back there?” the prosecutor said.
Deal then watched as Blackwell fired at least seven shots into Martin, who died several hours later, Twining said. Simultaneously, Williams fired his gun into the air, claiming he was afraid to do nothing because Blackwell was “the leader of the gang” and he had to save face in front of Blackwell, the prosecutor said.
But Wilbur Smith, Blackwell’s defense lawyer, said that it was Williams who was the “big-shot Crip.”
Smith said that Williams and an unknown accomplice killed Martin. Smith claimed Blackwell was with friends, far from the confrontation where Martin was killed, when the shooting occurred.
Smith acknowledged that Blackwell had been a Crip since he was a young teenager and that like everyone else at the club fled the scene in a car. He led police on a high-speed chase that ended when he crashed his car into a police car.
“Lamar took off (in his car) in a way that attracted attention,” Smith said. “What he did (in fleeing) was absolutely wrong. He didn’t stop. But he didn’t kill anybody.”
But Twining told the jury that two eyewitnesses identified Blackwell as the killer and ballistics tests showed that Blackwell’s revolver fired the bullets that killed Martin.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
