As the family of Lauren Smith-Fields prepares to sue the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, her loved ones—and others—are stressing the importance of social media in getting her story out there.
In a new report from the New York Times, some of Lauren’s friends opened up about how social media and TikTok specifically helped spread her story across the country, garnered millions of video views, and ultimately got more people interested in seeking justice in her case.
Smith-Fields’ cousin, Justin Evans-Smith, told the Times that seeing videos about Lauren on social media first made his stomach hurt, but he’s now learned to understand the importance that platforms like TikTok have in spreading awareness.
“This is bigger than us, this is going to be a movement,” he said. “… The way that Lauren’s case was treated, it just follows into the fact that Black lives aren’t treated as well as everybody else.”
Smith-Fields’ was found dead on Dec. 12 after she met a man via a dating app, and her family claims police did not inform them of her death. Bridgeport, Connecticut detectives Kevin Cronin and Angel Llanos have since been suspended after showing a “lack of sensitivity to the public and failure to follow police policy,” per ABC News. And her family has since said that a pill, lubrication, a used condom (with semen), and a sheet with blood stains have been recovered by family members at the scene where her body was found and were not received as evidence in the case.
“I just know that a lot of times stories about Black women, Black kids don’t really get much traction,” Jared Stokes, founder of a media education company centered on Black affairs, told the Times. “I just put it out and said, ‘OK, hopefully, this gets traction, and hopefully her family gets justice for this.’”
Stokes shared one of the first TikTok videos about Smith-Fields back in December, focusing on News 12 Connecticut coverage that mentioned she was on a date with a white man who hadn’t been brought in for questioning.
Miryam Abdul-Hakeem, another friend of Smith-Fields, shared a video about her friend that has since earned 2.1 million views on the platform. “A lot of these fill my heart,” she said of the video’s comments. “Some of them make me sad because some people tag their best friend. It’s a comment that says like, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ That makes me really sad.”
In an interview with Prism, TikToker Fiona Meehan opened up about being one of the first internet users to explore the case with her own clips, sharing that “it’s an ongoing investigation so [I am] figuring out what’s accurate, what’s inaccurate, [citing] my sources and then piecing together all the information.”
“I’ve just connected with people who are helping me get information and who are following along,” Meehan said.
As for what’s next in Smith-Fields’ story, her family—as well as the family of Brenda Lee Rawls—will testify before the Bridgeport police commission on Tuesday following the deaths of both women, as they call for a federal investigation into the department and the removal of the city’s police chief, per News 12.
The Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Lauren Smith-Fields’ cause of death as being an accidental drug overdose related to “acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine, and alcohol,” according to NBC Connecticut.
