(NewsNation) — The mother of Lauren Smith-Fields, the 23-year-old who died while on a date, has sued the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, alleging her daughter was denied a proper and thorough investigation because she’s Black.
Shantell Fields, a resident of Bridgeport, alleges in the lawsuit the city violated Smith-Fields’ civil rights, discriminated against her based on race, negligently handled her death investigation and treated her unequally under the law.
“My daughter, Lauren, was a beautiful young Black woman with her whole life ahead of her,” Fields said in a statement. “She was denied the basic right of an unbiased death investigation.”
Bridgeport police’s investigation into Smith-Fields’ death left her family “with a gaping hole in our hearts and a burning need for truth,” Fields said in her statement.
Smith-Fields was found dead in her home on Dec. 12, 2021, after going on a date with a white male, 37, whom she met on Bumble. The man Smith-Fields was with told police they were drinking shots of tequila when she became ill.
He then carried Smith-Fields to her bedroom, laid down next to her and fell asleep. When he woke up next to Smith-Fields at 6:30 a.m., he told officers, “blood was coming out of her right nostril,” and she wasn’t breathing.
The Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner ruled Smith-Fields’ death was accidental because of the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine and alcohol, though her family has said she did not use drugs.
Smith-Fields’ family has said the police didn’t collect enough information to validate declaring her death as an accident.
“We know that Lauren doesn’t use drugs, doesn’t have a history of using drugs. So the question is, how did those substances get in her body?” Fields’ attorney, Darnell D. Crosland, previously said in a NewsNation interview. “She was with one person before she died.”
About a month after Smith-Fields died, her mother was told by the Bridgeport Police Department to stop calling for updates on her daughter, the suit states, according to the Connecticut Post.
“Even to this day, the police have failed to properly update Lauren’s family,” the lawsuit says. “The family claims this is because the investigation was a sham, and Bridgeport Police never properly investigated her death.”
The lawsuit, which names the city of Bridgeport, Bumble, and several police officers as defendants, seeks damages of more than $30 million. Another suit, also asking for at least $30 million, was filed against the city by the sister of another Bridgeport woman, Brenda Lee Rawls, who died on the same day as Smith-Fields. Both pieces of litigation say families were not notified about their loved ones’ deaths in a timely matter.
A city of Bridgeport spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NewsNation Tuesday afternoon. The Connecticut Post reports that Mayor Joe Ganim said that the police department, then under the leadership of former acting Chief Rebeca Garcia, should have handled its response to the “untimely deaths” better.
“Communication and timely notifications with the families was critical in this difficult moment for them. (Current) Chief (Roderick) Porter has assured me that something like this will never happen again,” Ganim said.
Porter was quoted in the Connecticut Post as saying that the police department has taken “concrete measures” to ensure “timely and compassionate notification” to families when these incidents happen.
“By taking these measures, we are making sure that tragedies like these will not happen again in our city,” Porter said, according to The Post.
A Bumble spokesperson told NewsNation that the company remains “deeply saddened by Lauren’s tragic death” but “cannot comment on ongoing litigation.”
“We are committed to holding the City of Bridgeport and Bumble accountable for their actions,” Crosland said in a news release. “We believe that a white woman would have been treated differently under the law and we will not rest until justice is served.”
