Lauren Smith-Fields’ family suing Bridgeport police over her mysterious death

The family of Lauren Smith-Fields, a 23-year-old Black woman who was found dead in her bed following a first date with a man she met on a dating app, is suing the Bridgeport, Connecticut police department, claiming they mishandled the investigation into her death.

Mysterious death

Smith-Fields died December 12th, following a Bumble date with an older white man named Matthew LaFountain. LaFountain woke up next to Smith-Fields the morning following their date and called the police when he found her unresponsive, with blood coming out of her nose. He told police he observed some peculiar behavior during their date, including Smith-Fields going into the bathroom to vomit and going outside her apartment for several minutes to see her brother. LaFountain later told an officer “he thought it was odd, but didn’t feel it was his place to say anything as he didn’t know her that well,” according to the police report obtained by Rolling Stone.

Despite the mysterious circumstances surrounding Smith-Fields death, Bridgeport police failed to detain or question LaFountain, who was the last person to see Smith-Fields alive.

Lauren Smith-Fields

“When I asked the officer about the guy, he said he was a very nice guy and they weren’t looking into him anymore. It was almost like he was sticking up for him and it seemed weird to hear that from a detective,” her brother Lakeem Jetter told NBC Connecticut.

“He told me directly on the phone to stop calling him and hung up in my face, it was just like total disrespect, like that’s what you tell a family that’s going through grief and trying to find answers?”

Investigation

Bridgeport police took nearly a month to investigate after social media pressure.

Smith-Fields’ family claims there are inconsistencies in the police report and claims the police mishandled the investigation into her death, including leaving key items — like the cups she and LaFountain had been drinking out of, bloody sheets, and a bottle of pills found near her bed — from her apartment unexamined.

When Lauren came outside for 10-15 minutes as Fountain stated, Jetter claims Smith-Fields’ did not appear drunk to him. Rolling Stone reports that Jetter told police that when he called Smith-Fields to bring out his basket of clothes he was picking up, he “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. Lauren 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?’”

Lauren Smith-Fields family treatment by Bridgeport police

The family also claims Bridgeport police treated them rudely when they pushed for answers.

“In the beginning of this nightmare our family was extremely mistreated by The Bridgeport Police Department who as we stated initially declined to investigate Lauren’s untimely death,” the family wrote on the GoFundMe page, which they set up to raise funds to hire a private investigator to look into Smith-Fields’ death.

The family plans to serve a notice of an intention to sue to the City of Bridgeport and intends to make a formal announcement on Sunday.