‘UNACCEPTABLE’

Cause of Death Revealed for Woman Who Vanished After Bumble Date

Lauren Smith-Fields’ family has accused the police of being “racially insensitive” in handling the case.

A young Black woman who was found dead after a date with a man she had met on a dating app died of “acute intoxication” from a combination of drugs and alcohol, according to the Connecticut chief medical examiner’s office. The December death of Lauren Smith-Fields, 23, was ruled an “accident” after it was found she had died “due to the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine and alcohol.” Smith-Fields’ family has said they will continue to demand answers in the case, with plans to sue the city of Bridgeport and its police department over their handling of the case. NBC News reported last week that the family considered it “unacceptable” that Smith-Fields’ date, the last person she’d been seen alive with, had not been named a person of interest in the investigation. “The Police Department has been racially insensitive to this family,” a notice of claim, filed Friday as a part of the planned suit, said, “and has treated this family with no respect and has violated their civil rights.”