According to prosecutors, after the gunfire erupted, the entire family allegedly switched seats inside the vehicle, changed clothes, and tried to cover their tracks before fleeing. The details laid out in the indictment have left many people in disbelief.

NY police bigwig, husband helped goon son plan gangland shooting — and mom was getaway driver: sources

A Westchester County police bigwig and her ex-con hubbie chaperoned their gangbanger son to a botched hit on a rival in the Bronx – then she took over as the getaway driver, officials said Tuesday.

Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard, 49, and her husband James Lackard drove their 20-year-old son Chase Lackard to the Grand Concourse on June 29 at around 11:57 p.m. and helped him plan a brazen hit right outside the Bronx Criminal Court, according to police and court records.

Once there, the proud parents sat in the front of the family’s Chrysler Pacifica while their “Slutty Gang” member son opened fire with a semiautomatic out of the window toward members of the rival street crew P. Laafay – but missed his targets, sources and documents said.

Jennifer Lackard is escorted from the 44th Precinct in the Bronx.
Jennifer Lackard, the now-former Mount Vernon deputy police commissioner, is escorted out of the 44th Precinct in the Bronx on Tuesday, August 4, 2026.Robert Miller for NY Post

Then, the family of brainiacs sped off, switched seats in the car and even had the son change clothes to avoid detection, according to a criminal indictment unveiled Tuesday.

The proud mom – who is a former member of Bronx Community Board 9 – and her goon son were arrested Tuesday morning at their home in the Soundview neighborhood, cops and sources said. The dad, who has done hard time for dealing heroin, wasn’t in custody as Tuesday evening and is out of state, sources told The Post.

The Mount Vernon police force fired Jennifer Lackard from her $138.219-a-year gig hours after news of the arrest broke. The PD also wiped her profile from its website, which had listed her as boss of the Wellness Unit.

Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety - Reform Jennifer Lackard of the Mt. Vernon Police Department.
Jennifer Lackard was a deputy commissioner at the Mt. Vernon Police Department.Mt. Vernon Police Department
Headshot of Chase Lackard.
Chase Lackard allegedly shot at a group of rivals in the Bronx.Obtained by NY Post

“Effective immediately, the City of Mount Vernon has terminated Jennifer Lackard’s employment,” the department said in a news release.

“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 trio are each facing a slew of charges, including attempted murder, conspiracy and reckless endangerment.

Jennifer Lackard was arraigned Tuesday afternoon and ordered held on $75,000 bail by Bronx Judge Laurence Busching.

Chase Lackard was awaiting arraignment as of Tuesday evening.

The indictment against the less-than-model family outlines the elaborate lengths the alleged bad parents went to help their son try to murder his rivals, including giving him advice via text message.

Jennifer Lackard, Mt. Vernon Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety Reform, in an office.
Lackard and her husband allegedly helped their son plan the shooting.Facebook/Jennifer Lackard

The accomplice mom drove from the family’s home on Boynton Avenue to the Bronx Hall of Justice on East 161st Street, court records claimed.

Once there, the cop mom and her son got out and approached the building while the dad hopped into the driver’s seat, the documents said.

“Be directly in Fromt (sic) When I Leave,” Chase Lackard texted his mom, according to the indictment.

Jennifer Lackard, deputy police commissioner of Mount Vernon, with other individuals in a courtroom.
Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard appears at Bronx Criminal Court.WABC-TV

“When? … You can’t just sit directly outside. It has to be timed right,” she allegedly told her son, advising him not to be directly outside of the Hall of Justice.

Chase Lackard went inside the building and came out wearing a mask, then hopped in the back of the Chrysler his mom followed and hopped in the passenger seat moments later, the indictment claimed.

The trio drove around before Chase Lackard fired off multiple rounds from his semiautomatic – with the trip then speeding off a few blocks, where mom and dad again changed seats – and the alleged shooter changed clothes in the back, according to the records.

Still from video showing two perpetrators, one aiming a gun, in a parking lot.
Surveillance footage of the 2024 incident where Lackard was shot by police in The Bronx.NYPD

The mom and dad then dropped him back off at home, the records said.

Chase Lackard’s girlfriend is also in cuffs after the deranged family affair, sources said – but her part in the fiasco wasn’t mentioned in the indictment from Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark’s office.

How Jennifer Lackard first caught on with the Mount Vernon PD wasn’t immediately clear as she did not have on the job experience as a cop, but she was appointed to the deputy commissioner role of the Wellness Unit in 2022.

At the time, she told News 12 that the precinct would respond to constituents suffering from mental health issues without implementing traditional police tactics.

A Glock handgun on the ground among wet, brown autumn leaves.
A gun recovered after the 2024 police shooting involving Lackard.NYPD

“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,” Lackard said.

By then, she had already worked for organizations focused on reentry programs for formerly incarcerated people, her social media profile showed.

Her husband James had spent a decade in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin in North Carolina and was released from federal custody in February 2020, according to prison records..

Her son started his gangbanging while she was on the job in the Westchester city — including a November 2024 incident where he pointed a loaded Glock 43 9mm at cops during a dispute, according to law enforcement sources.

Chase Lackard was shot twice in the leg by police and was later charged with criminal use of a firearm and menacing a police officer in that incident, sources said.

Only a year earlier, her troubled son, then 17, was also shot in the chest on a Bx5 bus in Soundview after fighting with three other youths, cops said at the time.

Police investigate a shooting inside a Bx5 Citi Bus in the Bronx, New York.
The scene after Chase Lackard was shot inside of a Bx5 Citi Bus at Story Avenue and Metcalf Avenue in the Bronx, New York, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023.Tomas E. Gaston for NY Post

Chase Lackard allegedly flashed gang signs at the boys and then asked for their gang affiliation before allegedly trying to drag one of them off the bus.

One of them then shot him in the chest.

Mount Vernon, a Democratic stronghold city of just over 70,000 sharing a border with the Bronx, is known as a hotspot of scandal, bureaucratic dysfunction and corruption. Though the city is in bucolic Westchester, it is an urban community blighted by pockets of poverty and crime.

Law enforcement activist Damon Jones, publisher of a Mount Vernon-centric newspaper called Black Westchester Magazine, called the latest issue another embarrassment for the community – the only city in the county where black residents make up a majority of the population.

“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, a 33-year veteran of the Westchester County Department of Corrections, told The Post.

Lackard should have never been appointed to her leadership post, Jones railed, pointing out that her social work background was insufficient to kickstart the Wellness Unit of the troubled police department.

“Unfortunately, we see this with Democrats that they put people in positions — especially in law enforcement positions — that they shouldn’t be there,” said Jones.