By Denise Winters // Special Report // EEW Magazine Online

The family of Lauren Smith-Fields is suing Bridgeport, Connecticut over city authorities’ handling of the 23-year-old’s untimely death. Loved ones of the deceased are also requesting that an independent agency be brought in to take over the investigation into the mysterious death.

Smith-Fields’ lifeless body was discovered inside her Bridgeport apartment in the early hours of Dec. 12. Despite the story going viral on social media, more than a month later, the cause of death was unknown, and Smith-Fields’ family is understandably frustrated with Bridgeport Police’s handling of the investigation.

According to newly released autopsy results, the death has been ruled “an accident.” The medical examiner found that Smith-Fields died of acute intoxication from a combination of drugs and alcohol. The results showed Fentanyl in her system along with two other drugs, Promethazine, and Hydroxyzine. The report says the combination of those substances with alcohol resulted in Smith-Fields’ accidental death.

Though the cause of death is now known, questions remain, and both family and activists across the nation believe that the alleged mishandling of the case signifies a deeper problem—the devaluation of Black lives, more specifically, the lives of Black women. It has caused many to reference the case of Gabby Petito, a white woman who went missing while road-tripping with her boyfriend. Around-the-clock coverage put the case on everybody’s radar, and Petito was subsequently found dead.

Last month, Smith-Fields was found unresponsive in her apartment after spending time with a man she met on a dating app.
Credit: Lauren Smith-Fields via family lawyer

“It’s happening all too often with Black girls missing across this world, across this country, and no one says anything,” said Darnell Crosland, the family’s attorney. “When a white woman goes missing, the whole world drops everything. We are done with this valuation.”

“We’re suing the city of Bridgeport for failure to prosecute and failure to protect this family under the 14th Amendment,” Crosland continued, referencing the post-Civil War constitutional provision aimed at providing equal protection under the law for all citizens, including previously enslaved Black people.

Smith-Fields death followed a meetup with a man named Matthew LaFountain whom she connected with through the dating app Bumble. LaFountain has not been charged and is not a suspect in the case.

Shantell Fields, Lauren Smith-Fields' mother, speaks during a protest rally in front of the Morton Government Center in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Jan. 23.
via Associated Press

According to an official incident report, LaFountain was the one who found Smith-Fields’ body. He said, Smith-Fields had asked him for $40.00 dollars for her nails and to meet her at her Bridgeport residence, where they indulged in “shots of tequila.” The man who was last to see her alive told police Smith-Fields fell ill and went to the bathroom to vomit. Afterward, she returned, and the pair continued to drink tequila with mixers. They reportedly played games, ate food, and started watching a movie when Smith-Fields got a text message. The report says she went outside to retrieve something from her brother and went straight to the bathroom for 10-15 minutes after coming back inside.

“He thought it was odd,” the officer wrote in the report, “but didn’t feel it was his place to say anything as he didn’t know her that well.”

The family has raised multiple questions about the police report. According to Smith-Fields’ mother, Shantell Fields, and brother, Lakeem Jetter, her nails were freshly done earlier that week and were still so pristine that her nails didn’t need to be redone for her funeral. The police report also differs from the account of the last relative said to have seen Smith-Fields alive that night.

“I haven’t texted my sister since December 4th,” Jetter said, speaking about the night of December 11th, when he called Smith-Fields to bring out his basket of clothes he was there to pick up. “I didn’t know that anybody was in there. She came out and she was out there for like 10-15 minutes, and she walked back into the house. She looked normal. She didn’t look sick. She didn’t look tired. She didn’t look drunk. I’m her second older brother. If I would have seen her drunk, I would’ve said ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Why do you look like that?’”

The police report says that Smith-Fields and LaFountain continued watching the movie and had finished off the bottle of tequila, when she fell asleep on the couch. The man reported to officers that he carried her to her bedroom, where they both went to sleep. At 3 a.m., he said, he went to use the restroom, and she was snoring. At 6:30 a.m., he said that she was laying on her right side with blood coming out of her right nostril and was not breathing. He then called 9-1-1.

After the police arrived, Smith-Fields’ landlord was contacted but did not have family contact information. It wasn’t until days later when Smith-Fields’ mother, Shantell Fields, went to her daughter’s apartment to find out why Smith-Fields had not been answering multiple calls and texts from family that she discovered a note from the landlord saying, “If you are looking for Lauren, please contact this number.” This is how Fields was informed of her daughter’s death.

The police report does not mention detaining LaFountain for questioning, even though he was the last person to see Smith-Fields before her death. During the press conference, Smith-Fields’ brother, Jetter, said, the reason police said they didn’t bring the man in for questioning was because he seemed like a “nice guy.” In the police report, the patrol officer points out that the man was “frantic.”

On December 12th, the police report indicates that officers confiscated Smith-Fields’ phone, $1,345.00 in cash, keys and her passport. On December 29th, three days after Smith-Fields’ funeral, as the family cleaned out her apartment, they found a used condom with semen in the trash, lubrication, bloody sheets, and an unidentified pill.

Aside from the alleged failure of the investigation, the family also has several complaints about how they were treated by Bridgeport police officers when attempting to get answers about Smith-Field’s death.

According to the family, when they found out about Smith-Fields death on December 13th, they called Detective Cronin, who said he would arrive in 30 minutes. They waited over an hour and called again only to be told to stop calling. “How they spoke to us was disgusting,” said Shantell Fields, Lauren Smith-Fields’ mother. “Hanging up the phone and telling us to stop calling him. Officer Cronin needs to lose his job.”

Crosland said Cronin is under investigation by the department’s internal affairs division and that the case has been reassigned to Detective Garcia. Later that week, the family said that they received a visit from Garcia, marking the first time that police came out to conduct a crime scene investigation. By then, however, the family said, most of the evidence, like dishes and bloody sheets, had been packed.

“The first night we saw cups there, flipped plates, and the lube. The cops didn’t take any of the cups to test the liquor,” said Jetter. “There was a big stain of blood in the middle of her bed with streaks going to the right side.”

Crosland said, to date, the evidence has not been submitted to the proper channels or the Forensic Science Lab.

The app Bumble has reached out to CroslandLawGroup to show support and sympathy to the family, even offering to create a charity in Smith-Field’s name. Crosland said he and his team will be meeting with the CEO of Bumble later this week.

“We are deeply saddened by news of Lauren Smith-Fields’ death and have reached out directly to the family to offer support,” a spokesperson for Bumble said. “We stand ready to provide appropriate assistance and information as requested by law enforcement. The safety of our community is our priority, and we will continue to work day in and day out to keep our members safe. We have a dedicated team who responds to requests for information from law enforcement authorities around the world.”

“It doesn’t take but a little humanity for the city of Bridgeport to say ‘Wow, that should not have happened,’” Crosland said. “No one has called. Their inaction is action, and we are not going to stop until justice is served.”