Lauren Smith-Fields

Case background and investigation

Lauren Smith-Fields, a 23-year-old Black woman, lived alone in an apartment in Bridgeport, Connecticut. According to a police report described by ABC News, officers were called to the apartment just after 6:30 a.m. on December 12, 2021 and found her lying on the floor, not breathing. The 911 call was made by a man who told officers he had met her on a dating app three days earlier and that this was their first meeting in person. He said they had been drinking tequila, that she had become unwell during the evening, and that both later fell asleep; when he woke in the morning she was unresponsive. Officers described him as frantic and visibly shaken. He has not been charged with any offence.

Smith-Fields' family says the police never told them she had died. Her mother, Shantell Fields, told a Connecticut legislative committee that she went to the apartment on December 13 after being unable to reach her daughter and learned of the death from the landlord, the Connecticut Mirror reported. The family and their lawyer, Darnell Crosland, accused the Bridgeport Police Department of failing to collect evidence properly and of treating the case dismissively because of her race.

On January 24, 2022 the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that Smith-Fields died of acute intoxication from the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine and alcohol, and classified the death as an accident. Crosland said the family did not accept that the finding answered how the drugs were obtained or ingested. According to NPR, Bridgeport police then opened a criminal investigation through the narcotics and vice division, with assistance from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, into the factors that led to her death.

Mayor Joseph Ganim referred the handling of the case to internal affairs. ABC News reported that two detectives, Kevin Cronin and Angel Llanos, were placed on administrative leave at the end of January 2022 over the handling of this case and that of Brenda Lee Rawls, another Black woman found dead in Bridgeport the same day, and that both cases were reassigned. The Connecticut Post later reported that both detectives were reinstated. The two cases led to a 2022 change in Connecticut law requiring police to notify next of kin within 24 hours, according to CT Insider.

In December 2023 Shantell Fields filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking more than $30 million from the city, five police officers and Bumble Inc., the Connecticut Post reported. WSHU reported that in June 2026 the Bridgeport City Council approved a settlement under which $30,000 would go to the Smith-Fields family. In February 2023 the family told CT Insider they were still waiting for police records and had been told only that the investigation was open. No arrest or charge in connection with her death was found in the sources consulted.