WCDA Sentencing Result from March Shooting Incident

27 Year Prison Term for Defendant in Felony Battery Case

The Washoe County District Attorney’s Office (WCDA) has secured a sentence of 27 years against a defendant who pled guilty to charges of battery with a deadly weapon, discharging a firearm at or into an occupied structure and felon in possession of a firearm.  Dezhon Vincent Mack, 26, from Sparks, pled guilty in October and was sentenced earlier this week in District Court by judge Barry Breslow.  Based on the sentence, Mack must serve a minimum of 8 years before parole eligibility begins.

Case Details:   On March 11, 2018, 20 Reno Police Department (RPD) officers responded to a report of multiple shots fired in the area of the Alder Creek Apartments near Nutmeg Place in Reno. When RPD patrol officers arrived, they located two adult male victims with non-life threatening gunshot wounds and received multiple witness description of the shooting suspect. The officers quickly identified and located Mack, who was hiding in a nearby field and arrested him for the shooting.  A search of the scene located two handguns, a Smith & Wesson .380 and a Glock 9mm, as well as several shell casings and bullet strikes on area apartment buildings.  Additional investigation determined that Mack and one of the victims who had been shot had a physical confrontation several months prior the shooting.  This possible motive led to the day of the shooting when Mack drove by an apartment building the victims were standing in front of, got out of his car, abandoning the car occupants of his girlfriend and children, and immediately began shooting at one of the two men who was a distant family member; the other was struck randomly.  The victims were attempting to run away when they were shot.  Both victims sustained gunshot wounds to the leg and one also received a grazing gunshot wound to the armpit. This office subsequently filed formal criminal charges against Mack who ultimately pled guilty.

At sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Hahn argued for the maximum sentences and for them to run consecutive to each other.  Hahn demonstrated that Mack could not lawfully possess firearms to begin with as a convicted felon two years ago.  He showed that Mack abandoned his family in a busy roadway on impulse-rage behavior to chase down and fire upon an unarmed man.  In Mack’s foot chase of the fleeing family member, defendant Mack recklessly fired over 23 rounds into an occupied apartment complex, striking and penetrating several occupied apartments.  He thereafter beat the victim in the head with the now-empty guns.