A deputy police commissioner in a majority-Black New York city allegedly drove the getaway car while her gang-affiliated son tried to gun down rivals outside a Bronx courthouse, and critics say the Democratic mayor who hired her owes residents answers.
Jennifer Lackard, 49, was arrested by the NYPD and charged with attempted murder for her alleged role in a June 29 drive-by shooting outside a Bronx courthouse. Her son, Chase Lackard, 20, a reputed member of a Bronx street gang known as the "Slutty Gang", allegedly waited outside the courthouse for rivals and opened fire. His mother, according to a criminal indictment, drove the getaway car and texted him instructions during the attack, the New York Post reported.
The indictment described the family as having "orchestrated the shooting." Two of the alleged texts Jennifer Lackard sent her son read: "You can't just sit directly outside" and "It has to be timed right." Her husband, James Lackard, an ex-convict who spent nearly a decade behind bars for dealing heroin, was arrested a few days after her.
Mount Vernon fired Lackard after her arrest. But the fallout has only deepened for Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard, a Democrat who hired Lackard for the deputy commissioner post in 2020, despite Lackard having zero law enforcement experience, a son already entangled with a Bronx street gang, and a husband with a lengthy prison record.
Patterson-Howard and Lackard are sorority sisters in Delta Sigma Theta, Fox News reported, a connection that critics say explains how a woman with no policing background landed one of the most senior positions in a city police department. Lackard had never worked for a police department before her 2020 appointment. She had previously served in advisory roles on the Westchester County Probation Advisory Board and a New York City criminal justice task force, but nothing that resembled frontline law enforcement command.
Lackard herself acknowledged at the time that her hiring was "a leap of faith" for the department. The city of Mount Vernon, in a statement after her arrest, said her termination was effective immediately and that "the allegations are unrelated to her duties with the Mount Vernon Police Department."
That statement did little to quiet the questions. CB Griffin, a 54-year-old Mount Vernon grocer, put it plainly:
"It's favoritism. You'll probably find a lot of that in this city government."
After the arrest became public, Patterson-Howard pointed the finger at Glenn Scott, a former Mount Vernon police commissioner, claiming he had recommended Lackard for the job. She also cited "countrywide police reforms following George Floyd's killing" as context for the hiring decision. Scott died in 2024 and cannot respond.
Damon K. Jones, a representative for Blacks in Law Enforcement of America and publisher of the Mount Vernon-centric newspaper Black Westchester, rejected that explanation outright. Jones issued a press release calling for a formal probe into the city's leadership and directly accused the mayor of dishonesty.
"Glenn Scott would never have recommended placing an individual with no policing background or police experience into the position of Deputy Police Commissioner."
Jones did not stop there. He framed the scandal as a missed opportunity for Mount Vernon, a city of 72,000 people in Westchester County, a known Democratic stronghold that has weathered years of leadership failures:
"This should be an opportunity to demonstrate what professional Black leadership, accountable government and effective community-based policing can look like. Instead, the failures coming from City Hall and police leadership have repeatedly embarrassed the department and overshadowed the work of the many dedicated officers who continue to serve the community professionally."
His sharpest line landed on the mayor's credibility directly:
"Mount Vernon deserves leadership that accepts responsibility, not leadership that rewrites history."
Unnamed sources told the Post that Rev. Franklyn Richardson, a Democratic powerbroker and pastor of Grace Baptist Church, may have urged Patterson-Howard to hire Lackard. Both the mayor and Richardson attend Grace Baptist Church. Richardson has not publicly commented on the allegation.
If the claim is accurate, it would deepen the picture of a hiring decision driven by political and personal loyalty rather than public safety. Lackard's son was already known to be involved with a Bronx street gang before she was brought on in 2020. Her husband's criminal record, nearly a decade in prison for heroin distribution, was not a secret. And yet she was placed in a senior command role over a police department already dogged by what the Post described as "multiple police department controversies."
Lackard's arrest is not an isolated episode in Mount Vernon's recent history. Two sitting mayors have left office under criminal charges. Ernie Davis was charged with federal tax evasion. Richard Thomas was charged with state grand larceny, charges he has blamed on politics.
Thomas, the former mayor, issued a statement calling for federal intervention. He compared the city's governance problems to a national security threat:
"Letting the rigged Mt. Vernon machine operate above the law is like ignoring Iran building nuclear weapons. The simple truth is, at this point, only President Trump has the power to stop terrorism abroad and restore liberty right here at home, especially in Mt. Vernon."
Whether a federal probe materializes remains to be seen. President Trump has not publicly responded to Thomas's request. But the call itself speaks to the depth of frustration among residents and former officials who have watched Mount Vernon cycle through scandal after scandal under Democratic leadership with no meaningful accountability.
Jones's press release made a point that deserves emphasis: Mount Vernon's police department has officers who show up every day, do their jobs professionally, and put themselves at risk for the community. Those officers now carry the stain of a deputy commissioner who allegedly helped her gang-affiliated son attempt a drive-by shooting, a woman who got the job because she knew the right people, not because she had the right qualifications.
The city's statement tried to draw a clean line between Lackard's alleged crimes and her duties. But the hiring itself is the scandal. A mayor placed a personal associate, a sorority sister with no law enforcement experience and a family entangled with gang activity and drug trafficking, into a senior police leadership role. When it blew up, the mayor blamed a dead man.
Patterson-Howard has not offered a direct public statement beyond the deflection to Glenn Scott and the post-George Floyd reform environment. The residents of Mount Vernon, Jones said, have been left "with more questions than answers." The formal probe he and Blacks in Law Enforcement of America are calling for has not been announced by any authority.
The people of Mount Vernon, taxpayers, small business owners like CB Griffin, families who depend on competent policing, did not create this mess. Their elected leaders did. And until someone with authority forces a real accounting, the pattern will repeat itself, because the incentives that produced it have not changed.
