A New York deputy police commissioner making $138,219 a year to keep people safe allegedly spent her free time driving her son's getaway car after he opened fire outside a Bronx courthouse. Jennifer Lackard, 49, and her 20-year-old son Chase were arrested Tuesday morning in an early raid on their Bronx home. The charges include attempted murder, attempted assault, gun possession, conspiracy, and reckless endangerment.
What Actually Happened Outside That Courthouse
According to the New York Daily News, citing police sources, Chase Lackard allegedly opened fire on a group of people standing outside Bronx criminal court on June 29th. Nobody was hit. Then he ran, jumped into a waiting car, and was driven away at speed by his mother, the deputy police commissioner responsible for public safety in Mount Vernon, New York.
Let that sit for a second. The car idling outside the courthouse while shots rang out was not driven by a gang associate or a random accomplice. It was driven by a sworn law enforcement official whose job title, per the city's own termination announcement, was Deputy Commissioner of Wellness.
Wellness. She was the Deputy Commissioner of Wellness.
The City's Statement Is Doing a Lot of Work
Mount Vernon announced Lackard's termination via Instagram, which is a choice. The statement confirmed the charges and said, with admirable understatement, that her conduct was "unrelated to her duties" with the department. The city added that it "will not comment on the underlying allegations."
To be fair, there is not much to add. The Bronx District Attorney's office filed the charges. The facts are what they are. Still, announcing that you have fired your deputy police commissioner for allegedly participating in an attempted murder via Instagram post is a specific kind of civic communication that belongs in a time capsule.
The city did not list a lawyer for either of the Lackards as of Tuesday, and the Bronx DA's office had not responded to The Guardian's request for comment.
Chase Lackard's File Is Not Thin
This is not Chase Lackard's first time in the news, and his mother's involvement in his orbit of violence did not start Tuesday. In January 2023, when Chase was 17, The Guardian reports he was shot in the chest on a bus during a dispute over gang signs. A 14-year-old from a rival gang was charged with attempted murder. Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard called Jennifer Lackard a "valuable member of our leadership team" and said the city was praying for her son.
In November 2024, Bronx police responding to a large fight shot Chase Lackard after he allegedly pointed a 9mm pistol at an officer's vehicle. He was 19. He was hospitalized with two gunshot wounds to the leg and criminally charged. The mayor called that episode "a personal matter" and said the city was, again, praying for the family.
New York City's chief of patrol, John Chell, told reporters that Chase Lackard had also been arrested on a separate gun charge in September 2024. Three gun-related incidents in roughly fourteen months, and his mother was still the city's Deputy Commissioner of Wellness.
The Numbers on the Door
According to the government transparency site See Through NY, Jennifer Lackard's salary in 2025 was $138,219. That is what Mount Vernon was paying someone who, prosecutors allege, was running an active getaway operation for a son with a documented and escalating pattern of gun violence.
The attempted murder charge stems from shots fired at people outside a criminal court building, which is either the most brazen possible venue for a shooting or a very specific message, and nobody has explained which. No one was struck or injured, which is the one piece of this story that doesn't make everything worse.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to believe that a senior law enforcement official had no idea her son, who had been shot, arrested, charged, and shot again in the space of three years, was about to fire a weapon at a group of people outside a courthouse. You are supposed to believe she just happened to be parked there. And then, when gunshots rang out, she just happened to drive away quickly. That is the version of events where she maybe, possibly, has some legal daylight.
The more likely version, which prosecutors appear to be working from given the conspiracy charge, is that this was coordinated. That a woman with a badge and a salary and a title about wellness sat in a running car and waited for her kid to shoot at people. That is not a tragic family situation. That is an alleged crime committed by someone who was simultaneously responsible for the safety and wellbeing of an entire city's police workforce.
Mount Vernon has two mayoral prayer requests on record for this family. The prayers did not work, and neither, apparently, did any of the oversight mechanisms that should have flagged that the city's wellness commissioner had a son racking up gun charges like parking tickets. Someone should ask some hard questions about that. Not in an Instagram post, though. Maybe somewhere slightly more formal.
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