Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Arrested After Allegedly Texting Son Instructions During Gang Shooting

A deputy police commissioner in Mount Vernon, New York, is accused of texting her son real-time instructions during a gang shooting outside a Bronx courthouse, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday and reported by police1 and the Daily Wire.

Jennifer Lackard, 49, served as the Mount Vernon Police Department's Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety. She was arrested at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday when police showed up at her home in the Soundview section of the Bronx with a warrant, according to police1. She was fired from her job "effective immediately" hours later, the Mount Vernon Police Department said in a statement.

Her son, 20-year-old Chase Lackard, described in reporting from both outlets as a member of a gang called the "Slutty Gang," is charged in the attempted shooting of a member of a rival gang, identified by the Daily Wire as P. Laafay. Her husband, James Lackard, 47, turned himself in on Thursday, according to the Daily Wire. He has a prior federal drug trafficking conviction from 2012, according to police1.

According to the unsealed indictment, the family drove to the Bronx Hall of Justice near East 162nd Street and Grand Avenue on June 29. While Jennifer and Chase waited outside the courthouse, they exchanged texts working out logistics for the attack, court documents show.

"Be directly in front when I leave," Chase texted his mother, according to the indictment.

"When?" she responded. "You can't just sit directly outside. It has to be timed right."

Chase then put on a black mask and got into the back seat of a tan Chrysler Pacifica, with his father driving and his mother in the front passenger seat, according to police1. James Lackard drove the car in circles around the courthouse for roughly 45 minutes before pulling up behind the building, where Chase allegedly fired several shots through a rolled-down window. No one was hit.

After the shooting, Jennifer and James switched seats, and the family drove to Soundview, where Chase changed clothes inside a vehicle before entering a residential building on Boynton Avenue, the indictment states. The parents then abandoned the Chrysler in a nearby parking lot and left in a black SUV that had been parked there, according to court documents cited by police1.

This was not Chase Lackard's first violent encounter tied to gang activity. In November 2024, NYPD officers shot him twice in the leg in Soundview after he allegedly pointed a 9mm pistol at police during a confrontation at the Stevenson Commons residential tower, according to police1. He was charged at the time with criminal use of a firearm and menacing a police officer.

Police have linked the June 29 courthouse shooting to ongoing gang tensions, according to police1. As of Tuesday, it was not immediately clear whether James Lackard was in custody after officials said he was in North Carolina; the Daily Wire later reported he turned himself in on Thursday.

The case has drawn attention in part because of Jennifer Lackard's public profile. She had led the Mount Vernon Police Department's Wellness Unit since 2022 and publicly advocated for the department to respond to mental health crises without defaulting to traditional policing, telling reporters that "a lot of the people we encounter are in a mental health crisis" and that some are "frequent fliers because they don't have support," according to the Daily Wire.

The Mount Vernon Police Department, in its statement announcing her termination, said the allegations against Lackard are "unrelated to her duties with the Mount Vernon Police Department and do not stem from any conduct associated with the Department or the performance of her official responsibilities."

Damon Jones, a former Westchester County Department of Corrections employee who now publishes Black Westchester Magazine, criticized the department publicly over the case, saying he was "embarrassed as a black law enforcement officer to see the dysfunction in a city that has a black mayor, a majority of black city council, a majority black police department," according to the Daily Wire.

Lackard's own advocacy work, mentoring wives of incarcerated men based on her experience during her husband's time in federal prison, sits uneasily against the allegation that she personally coordinated a drive-by shooting with her son. Neither the Daily Wire nor police1 reported a public statement from Jennifer Lackard, Chase Lackard, or their attorneys responding to the indictment's specific allegations.

The charges against all three family members remain allegations at this stage; none has been convicted. Court proceedings for Jennifer, Chase, and James Lackard have not yet been scheduled as of this reporting, and it remains unresolved what specific charges each faces beyond the accomplice and attempted-hit allegations already reported.