Grape Street Crips member who laughed about murdered teen gets long prison term

The bullets spewed out in rapid fire in broad daylight at a neighborhood cookout in a Newark public housing complex, as children played nearby.

The gunman was Kwasi Mack, a member of Newark’s Grape Street Crips known as “Welchs,” who was armed with an automatic assault rifle and was out for blood. His target–a fellow gang-member who had cooperated with authorities in a murder investigation and whose loyalty to the gang was in question.

He had been released from prison just three months before the Columbus Day 2011 shooting.

On Thursday, the 29-year-old high-ranking gang member was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison for a violent crime spree of assaults and murders, including the fatal shooting of a teenager who cried for his mother as Mack–who laughed about it later with another gang member–pulled the trigger.

Mack pleaded guilty in October to eight counts charging him with murder and attempted murder, assaults, and conspiracy to distribute heroin.

He was among more than 70 members of the Crips who were arrested in a multi-year federal takedown that recently ended with the conviction of Corey Hamlet, the leader of the violent street gang that controlled much of the heroin trade in Newark and its nearby suburbs, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Mack admitted to a deadly series of assaults that began as far back as August 2006, when he shot and killed the teenager, a rival gang-member, and shot and paralyzed another young man.

He also pleaded guilty to the October 2011 shooting in Newark at the Kemsco Village housing complex. While nobody died, Mack shot eight people, with at least two of suffering permanent or life-threatening injuries.

Prosecutors said after being charged with attempted murder, he discovered the identity of the only person willing to testify against him and ordered fellow gang-members to kill the witness. While gang-members took steps to carry out Mack’s orders, prosecutors said the murder never took place.

Mack admitted as well to a 2013 plot to kidnap and rob a major heroin-trafficker, and ordering the murder of two other gang-members.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.