City says firing unrelated to Lackard’s police-department duties
In its Instagram post announcing the firing, Mount Vernon described Jennifer Lackard as its former deputy commissioner of wellness. “The Mount Vernon police department is aware of the criminal charges filed by the Bronx county district attorney’s office against former deputy commissioner of wellness, Jennifer Lackard,” the city said. “Effective immediately, the city of Mount Vernon has terminated Jennifer Lackard’s employment. The allegations are unrelated to her duties with the Mount Vernon [police] and do not stem from any conduct associated with the department or the performance of her official responsibilities.” The city said it “will not comment on the underlying allegations.”
The New York Daily News, citing police sources, reported that Lackard and her son, Chase Lackard, 20, were arrested in an early-morning raid Tuesday at their home in New York City’s Bronx borough. The charges stem from shots fired at a group of people outside the courthouse on June 29, and the Bronx county district attorney’s office filed them, according to the city’s statement. The two face charges of attempted murder, attempted assault, gun possession, conspiracy and reckless endangerment, the newspaper reported. According to the Daily News, Chase Lackard was the alleged gunman in the June 29 shooting and jumped into a car driven from the scene at speed by his mother; nobody was struck or injured during the shooting.
No lawyer was immediately listed for the Lackards on Tuesday, and The Guardian said it had sent a request for comment to the Bronx district attorney’s office. Lackard earned $138,219 in 2025, according to the See Through NY government transparency website.
The Guardian also reported two earlier incidents involving Chase Lackard. In January 2023, when he was 17, he was reportedly shot in the chest on a bus in a dispute over gang signs with three other boys, and a 14-year-old member of a rival gang was later arrested and charged with attempted murder. At the time, 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’s recovery.
In November 2024, police in the Bronx shot Chase Lackard, then 19, after he was alleged to have pointed a 9mm pistol at an officer’s car during a large fight; he was taken to a hospital with two gunshot wounds to a leg and later criminally charged. John Chell, the New York City police department’s chief of patrol, told reporters that Lackard was also arrested in September 2024 on a gun charge. In a statement following that episode, Patterson-Howard called it “a personal matter and we are praying for the family.”