The disgraced Westchester County police official charged with driving her gangbanging son to a taking pictures is a sorority sister with the mayor who gave her the comfortable gig.
Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard employed Jennifer Lackard to go up the newly created police division Wellness Unit in 2020, regardless of her having no legislation enforcement expertise, an ex-con husband and an out-of-control son in a road gang.
Metropolis officers confirmed Thursday that the mayor and the disgraced police bigwig had been sorority sisters, with sources telling The Publish they had been each sworn to Delta Sigma Theta.
The 2 additionally attend Grace Baptist Church, an influential congregation within the troubled suburban metropolis, and sources mentioned the church’s politically related pastor, the Rev. Franklyn Richardson, might have pulled some strings to assist Lackard land the profitable job.
A spokesperson for Richardson declined to remark.
It is usually unclear if Lackard, 49, was the one candidate thought of for the $125,000 Mount Vernon police division place, and if Patterson-Howard’s reported friendship performed a job within the choice.
The mayor’s workplace declined to handle these questions, and maintained that Patterson-Howard didn’t even know the controversial cop till she was employed — and mentioned the 2 aren’t even pals.
“There was no private relationship between Jennifer Lackard and Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard both previous to or throughout Ms. Lackard’s employment with the Metropolis of Mount Vernon,” a rep for the mayor’s workplace mentioned in an announcement Thursday.
“Ms. Lackard was employed by former Police Commissioner Glenn Scott following the town’s established hiring course of,” the assertion mentioned. “The Metropolis has no additional remark right now.”
Nonetheless, a photograph posted on Fb exhibits the 2 ladies arm in arm and smiling at an occasion. When Chase Lackard was shot within the chest throughout a gang-related encounter on a Bronx metropolis bus in 2023, sources mentioned Mount Vernon cops confirmed up at Jacobi Hospital.
In an announcement Wednesday, the mayor mentioned Lackard was employed due to her 15-year profession in psychological well being and substance abuse companies, which match the brand new unit’s job.
She mentioned Lackard underwent a “rigorous background examine,” and that her husband’s drug conviction didn’t disqualify her for the place.
Metropolis officers mentioned the Wellness Unit was created to assist cops deal with unstable conditions involving emotionally unstable and intoxicated people they encounter in they day-to-day jobs.
In a single latest gaffe, the unit was known as in to execute an order to commit a 58-year-old man who barricaded himself in his Mount Vernon dwelling final week — with cops in the end taking pictures and critically wounding the troubled man, ABC Eyewitness Information reported.
Patterson-Howard lastly fired Lackard Tuesday, however solely after police arrested her, her drug-peddling husband, James Lackard, and their troublemaking 20-year-old son, Chase Lackard, for his or her alleged position in a botched drive-by taking pictures of a gang rival on June 29.
All three had been indicted on tried homicide, conspiracy, tried assault and gun prices.
The Lackards based Ivy Home Heart for Self-Sufficiency, a nonprofit that served legal defendants with psychological well being or drug points in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 2007 — with Jennifer Lackard because the CEO and James Lackard serving on the advisory board till the funding dried up.
James Lackard was convicted of federal drug prices within the late Nineties and served time in jail.
Jennifer Lackard reappeared in New York, the place she based a brand new nonprofit, Re-Entry Hyperlink LLC within the Bronx, and took a seat on Bronx Neighborhood Board 9 earlier than touchdown the Mount Vernon job.
On June 29, The Lackards drove to the Bronx Corridor of Justice on East 161st Road, the place Chase Lackard, a reputed member of the “Slutty Gang,” had a scheduled courtroom look — one in all three gun pending gun instances he faces within the Bronx and Manhattan.
After leaving courtroom, prosecutors mentioned he jumped into his dad and mom’ ready Chrysler Pacifica and adjusted garments, as his dad and mom started to circle the block for a number of minutes.
When the supposed goal was noticed, Chase Lackard allegedly fired on the particular person from the window of the SUV — lacking the goal — earlier than his mother drove him dwelling, prosecutors mentioned.
Jennifer and Chase Lackard had been picked up by cops at their Bronx dwelling on Tuesday, whereas James Lackard was on the unfastened till her turned himself in to the NYPD on Thursday.
Chase Lackard was ordered held with out bail, whereas his mother posted her bail of $75,000 money or a $150,000 bond on Thursday. Her husband is being held on $150,000 money bail or a $300,000 bond after being arraigned on the indictment later within the day.
“The entire block is speaking,” a household neighbor instructed The Publish Thursday. “I don’t know when that good lady went dangerous. The husband, I don’t even actually know the place he got here from. He simply confirmed up a couple of years in the past, and most of us didn’t even know she had a son, a 20 12 months outdated.
“I’m shocked,” she mentioned. “The entire constructing is shocked. We simply know Jennifer as getting up and going to work. She ought to know higher than anybody. What made you assume you’re going to get away with this?”
Mount Vernon is a metropolis of 72,000 folks referred to as a Democratic Get together stronghold that shared a border with the Bronx.
