A high-ranking Westchester County police official lost her job hours after her arrest on attempted murder charges for allegedly helping her 20-year-old son carry out a drive-by shooting in the Bronx, a case that exposes deep rot in a department already under scrutiny.

The City of Mount Vernon fired Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard on Tuesday after a grand jury indictment accused her and her husband, James Lackard, of driving their son Chase to a busy Bronx street so he could open fire on rival gang members with a semiautomatic handgun. Chase Lackard, a reputed member of a gang known as the "Slutty Gang," allegedly rolled down a car window at 11:57 a.m. on June 29 and discharged the weapon multiple times toward unnamed individuals near the area of Concourse, the New York Post reported. No one was hit.

All three Lackards now face charges including attempted murder, conspiracy, and reckless endangerment. Jennifer Lackard, 49, was arraigned Tuesday and had bail set at $75,000. She is due back in court September 25. Chase Lackard was awaiting arraignment Tuesday afternoon. James Lackard had not yet been arrested as of publication and was described as out of state.

Text messages point to a planned attack, not a spur-of-the-moment ride

This was not a case of a mother who happened to be behind the wheel at the wrong time. The indictment alleges Jennifer Lackard helped plan the shooting and coordinated with her son by text message beforehand. In one exchange cited in the case, she allegedly texted Chase instructions on timing and positioning.

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

Chase Lackard, for his part, allegedly texted his mother directing her to be in front of the Hall of Justice as soon as he left. James Lackard was in the driver's seat when Chase fired, and afterward the family stopped outside their home so Chase could change his clothing, a step consistent with evading identification, not with innocent confusion about what had just happened.

Chase's girlfriend, who was not named, was also arrested in connection with the incident. The specific charges against her were not disclosed.

Jennifer Lackard earned $138,219 a year from the Mount Vernon Police Department, according to public salary data from SeeThroughNY. She headed the department's Wellness Unit, which was created in 2022 to handle encounters with people in mental health crisis. In a 2022 interview with News 12 about the unit, she described the challenges of the work.

"A lot of the people we encounter are in a mental health crisis. Some are combatant, some are really, really aggressive and some are not. And some are frequent fliers because they don't have support."

She had no prior criminal record. That distinction now belongs to her alone in the family.

Chase Lackard's record includes being shot twice, once by police

The June 29 shooting was not Chase Lackard's first encounter with gunfire or with law enforcement. In 2024, he pointed a gun at police officers during a dispute and was shot twice in the leg. He was later charged with criminal use of a firearm and menacing a police officer. The case that preceded even that incident was, if anything, more alarming.

In January 2023, when Chase was 17, he was shot in the chest aboard a Bx5 city bus in the Soundview section of the Bronx. He had allegedly flashed gang signs at three other youths on the bus and asked them their gang affiliation before trying to drag one of them off. One of the three shot him. He survived.

That a deputy police commissioner's son had been shot by police, shot on a city bus, and was a reputed gang member, and that she allegedly chose to help him carry out another shooting rather than steer him away from that life, raises questions that go well beyond one family's choices. It raises questions about who vetted Jennifer Lackard for a senior law enforcement role and what, if anything, the department knew about her son's record.

The pattern calls to mind other recent cases of police officials facing serious criminal charges, a reminder that a badge and a title do not guarantee integrity.

Mount Vernon moved fast to cut ties, but the hiring decision still stands out

The city acted swiftly once the charges became public. Mount Vernon's official statement, posted to Instagram, was two sentences long and carefully lawyered.

"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 Department and do not stem from any conduct associated with the Department or the performance of her official responsibilities."

The second sentence does a lot of work. It distances the department from the charges, but it does not address how a woman whose son had already been shot by police officers and charged with menacing cops ended up running a unit inside a police department. Jennifer Lackard had no prior criminal record herself, but the question is whether anyone in leadership asked harder questions about her family circumstances before handing her a senior title and a six-figure salary.

Damon Jones, a 33-year veteran of the Westchester County Department of Corrections and publisher of Black Westchester Magazine, did not hold back. Jones told Fox News the case was a source of deep frustration.

"This is f---ing embarrassing! I am 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 that we have to see continuing dysfunction and just foolery in an organization that should be so professional."

Jones went further, pointing to a political pattern he said went beyond Mount Vernon.

"Unfortunately, we see this with Democrats that they put people in positions, especially in law enforcement positions, that they shouldn't be there."

Jones's criticism is blunt, but it lands on a real problem. When political loyalty or identity considerations drive hiring in law enforcement, rather than competence, judgment, and a clean personal orbit, the consequences eventually show up. Sometimes they show up as administrative dysfunction. Sometimes they show up as a deputy commissioner allegedly texting her gang-affiliated son about the timing of a drive-by.

James Lackard served a decade in federal prison for heroin distribution

The family picture grows darker with additional reporting on James Lackard. A separate New York Post report revealed that James Lackard served a decade in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and was released in February 2020. That Jennifer Lackard was appointed to a senior police department role in 2022, two years after her husband's release from a lengthy federal drug sentence, adds another layer to the vetting question.

The elaborate coordination described in the indictment, text message planning, seat-switching, a clothing change afterward, does not suggest a family caught up in a moment of panic. It suggests preparation. And it suggests a deputy police commissioner who understood, from her professional training, exactly what steps might help evade detection.

The case joins a growing list of senior officials exposed for conduct that made a mockery of the positions they held. The gap between the public role and the private behavior is always striking. In this case, it is staggering: the head of a police wellness unit allegedly coaching her son through a gang shooting.

Mount Vernon, a city of roughly 74,000 in Westchester County just north of New York City, has struggled with violent crime and political controversy for years. The department's credibility takes another hit at a time when public trust in local institutions is already fragile, not unlike the fallout seen when Seattle pushed out its police chief after a deadly festival shooting exposed leadership failures.

Open questions remain as the case heads to court

Several facts remain unresolved. James Lackard has not been arrested and is believed to be out of state. The specific court handling the case has not been identified in public reporting. The full list of charges against each defendant has not been enumerated, prosecutors have described "a slew of charges" beyond the three named counts. And the charges against Chase Lackard's girlfriend remain undisclosed.

Jennifer Lackard's next court date is September 25. Chase Lackard's arraignment was expected Tuesday afternoon. Whether James Lackard will be apprehended before then, and whether additional defendants or charges will emerge, remains to be seen. The case is still in its early stages, and the indictment may yet reveal more about how a senior law enforcement official allegedly came to participate in the very kind of violence her department exists to prevent.

The accountability failures here did not start on June 29. They started the day someone decided a woman whose household included a convicted federal drug trafficker and a son with an escalating record of gang violence was the right person to wear a deputy commissioner's badge. When institutions hire for reasons other than merit and judgment, the public eventually pays the price, and in Mount Vernon, that bill just came due.