Mount Vernon deputy police commissioner fired following arrest 41%
By Jonathan Bandler17%
8/4/2026, 12:52:24 PM
Keywords: Mount Vernon, Ny, Police, Gun Crime, Bronx, Law Enforcement, Violence And Abuse, Crime And Justice, Overall Negative
BS Summary: This article contains 8 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Horn Effect, and Confirmation Bias, with Halo Effect as the most egregious example at 32.5% saturation with 148 hits. Analysis detected 472 faulty-reasoning hits from 456 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 39.1% and a BS Rank of 41% (16,249 of 27,241 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 59.60% of the article peer group.
A Mount Vernon deputy police commissioner has been fired following her arrest for allegedly serving as getaway driver for her troubled son after a shooting last month behind the Bronx Hall of Justice.
Chase allegedly fired at a group near E. 162nd St. and Grant Ave. just before noon that day then jumped in a car that headed northbound on East 163rd St., police said.
No one was hit.
Police said both were charged with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy, with Chase Lackard additionally charged with criminal possession of a weapon.
Lackard, who had no law enforcement experience, was hired in 2020 by new Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard to a new position as deputy commissioner for wellness, tasked with overseeing the development of police reforms and behavioral health and wellness programs for officers and the community.
The city's press release announcing Lackard's termination Tuesday emphasized that the allegations in the Bronx "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."
That's been the same message four other times this year when other Mount Vernon officers have been arrested in unrelated cases on Long Island, in Mount Vernon, in Queens and in Florida, an unprecedented stretch of arrests involving the same Westchester police department.
In 2007, Lackard founded the Ivy House Center for Self-Sufficiency, a Winston-Salem, NC program with outpatient mental health and substance abuse therapy that was the catalyst for creation of a mental health court.
The agency was forced to close five years later when contracts were canceled because of the arrest of her husband, and agency co-founder, James Lackard, on federal drug charges.
He pleaded guilty and served federal prison time before his release a few months before she took the Mount Vernon job.
Between 2012 and her hiring in Mount Vernon she served on Bronx Community Board 9 and founded Re-Entry Link LLC, an organization serving vulnerable populations as they transition from incarceration.
She served on a subcommittee of a New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice task force working on re-entry programs; was founder of the Mount Vernon Re-Entry Coalition; and led Station of Hope, the prison ministry at Grace Baptist Church.
Chase Lackard has pending criminal cases in the Bronx and Manhattan.
In November 2024 he was arrested after being shot in the leg by an NYPD officer when he allegedly pointed a gun at officers following a fight in the Soundview neighborhood.
Three months earlier he was arrested on gun charges in Manhattan.
In 2023 he was shot in the chest during a gang-related fight on an MTA bus in the Bronx.
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