In December 2021, two African American women died on the same day in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Both women were later determined to have died of natural causes. However, the families of both women — 23-year-old Lauren Smith-Fields and 53-year-old Brenda Lee Rawls — complained that they weren’t notified of their loved ones’ deaths in a timely manner and were treated very disrespectfully by the investigating police officers. The two officers involved were placed on paid administrative leave during an investigation of their actions.
On Feb. 19, women and a few men gathered in Bridgeport for a march and rally that called for a national community-based search to replace the acting police chief, implementation of Bridgeport’s new mobile crisis intervention team, an investigation of the Bridgeport Police Department by the U.S. Justice Department and more.
What happened to these two women is unfortunately not rare. In fact, approximately 100,000 Black women and girls went missing in the U.S. in 2020, but news media coverage is scarce in comparison with other demographic groups. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Connecticut State Sen. Marilyn Moore, who represents Bridgeport in the state Senate and was one of the speakers at the rally. Here, state Sen. Moore talks about why she believes what occurred in Bridgeport is illustrative of a wider national problem concerning the systemic devaluation and disregard for the lives of women of color.
STATE SEN. MARILYN MOORE: These two women and what happened to them, the lack of respect for human life, disregard for the family and their feelings – I just felt this was an opportunity to bring all black women together to highlight what’s happening here in Bridgeport. The circumstances of how they died is one thing. The fact that nobody went to the families to let them know.
One of them was on the same street. She went down the street to see a gentleman; died there. It wasn’t until a couple days later that the sister went to look for her sister and found out she had died. Same street? I mean, not only the police, but the gentleman who said, “Your sister died.” Or the landlord? I mean, what would it take to walk down the street and say,” Did you know? Right?”
And what would it take for the police, once they found the body, to say, “Where does she live? She lives down the street,” to let them know. It’s just shoddy police work. And it’s just disregard for black women and their lives, like we don’t carry value, right? And for people to assume all the negative things about those two black women is also a slap in the face, right? You don’t know the circumstances, and right away, I feel, personally, that they saw two black women and didn’t see the value of them and just moved on. I mean how could you have two instances like that and not say there’s a problem with the system?
MELINDA TUHUS: One of the demands from the rally was that the state legislature form an advisory task force to look into murdered and missing black women and girls in Connecticut, even though apparently these two women were not murder victims and died of natural causes. Do you think that’s a problem in the state?
STATE SEN. MARILYN MOORE: We don’t know if it’s a problem, because we don’t update our data on the state website. So, I did some investigation pre-the demand and found that each municipality works differently.
We don’t see the data on the state website that says that all the municipalities are sending their data to one place that we can look at it at a statewide level. So I don’t know if it’s a problem. I have to pull together an advisory, and we have to figure out if we can get this done in a short session, because we wouldn’t be able to get any legislation done this late in the game. So we’re looking at perhaps doing something in the summer in the way of an advisory and be prepared in January 2023 to bring forth legislation. But we can’t do that until we do the investigative work to find out process, reporting – if there’s nothing recorded on the website why is it not recorded on the website, why is it not reported on the website, and how do we get the data to be reported in once place.
MELINDA TUHUS: Sen. Marilyn Moore, when a young white woman goes missing, the whole world learns about it from the wall to wall, 24/7 media coverage. The most recent one was Gabby Petito, a young, white social influencer, who tragically, was killed. And it’s not that we don’t care about missing white women, but one of these women who died in Bridgeport – Lauren Smith-Fields, was also a social influencer. Do you think this lack of attention to black, indigenous and women of color is a national problem?
STATE SEN. MARILYN MOORE: I do think it’s a national problem because if you look at where we did get coverage, it was on the black news stations, social media coverage for the two in Bridgeport. It got national attention, but it wasn’t on CNN until other stations had picked it up and they contacted Roland Martin, I believe, to talk about this – the attorney did and the NAACP.
But prior to that, I just don’t think people value people of color and their lives and their contributions. I feel this also about our kids getting shot – one less black person they have to deal with. And I think they rush to an attitude of “they deserved it.” It’s almost like being a victim of rape, right? Well, what did they do to deserve it, right? Not seeing the innocence or the human being behind the situation, but rushing to these conclusions.
MELINDA TUHUS: At the rally you called for action beyond just that one day. What do you want to see?
STATE SEN. MARILYN MOORE: While I’m pleased with the number of people who attended, I then watch to see how many people reach back and say, “What can I do?”
Don’t go home and just say I participated in the rally. What is your action plan? What do you plan on doing? How are you going to reuse your voice over and over? We re going to do a follow up of this and bring people back together and have a larger conversation about what happened. We don’t want to ease up. This is just a moment, but there has to be a path that we’re going to continue doing this. Everybody has to take responsibility for what happens in their community.
