More than 1,350 people died from drug overdoses in Connecticut in 2021, according to state data. Fentanyl was the most common drug involved in those deaths.
“The Bridgeport Police Department continues to treat the untimely death of Lauren Smith-Fields as an active investigation,” Rebeca Garcia, the chief of police, said in a statement.
Darnell Crosland, the family’s lawyer, believes the criminal investigation should have been opened as soon as Ms. Smith-Fields was found dead.
“We thought from the beginning that there was foul play here,” Mr. Crosland said.
He added: “When you launch an investigation, that investigation must start with and include the last living person that reported the death of the other person.”
The slow response from law enforcement and delayed news coverage of the death of Ms. Smith-Fields, who was Black, has renewed conversation around “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” a phrase, coined by the PBS anchor Gwen Ifill nearly two decades ago, that describes the attention paid to white women who appear to be in harm’s way while Black women in similar situations are often ignored.
“After the Gabby Petito case, I felt, just from my perspective, that we were starting to see more equitable coverage,” said Danielle Slakoff, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Sacramento State University. Ms. Petito was a 22-year-old white woman who went missing last September and was later found to have been strangled to death. Her case had the media transfixed.
“But then Lauren’s case happened and I saw that really it was the family and social media that were keeping this case going, that were keeping the interest going, and it was disappointing,” Dr. Slakoff said. “The family deserves the space to grieve, and instead they are, in this story, trying to get justice for her.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/nyregion/lauren-smith-fields-bumble-date-investigation.html
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