After an uptick in the deaths of Black women in Conneticut, a bill advanced to the full legislature nearly two weeks ago. #HouseBill5349 will require police who respond to “a deceased person or the remains of a person” to notify family or next of kin within a 24 hour time frame and if not, they are to document the reason that they failed to do so.
This progression comes just 3 months after the deaths of two Black #Bridgeport women, whose families were not informed of their deaths by police until days later.
You might recall the death of #LaurenSmithFields, the 23 year old college student, who’d gone on a date with 37 year old white male #MatthewLaFountain whom she had met on the #Bumble dating app. He called the police the morning after their date to say she was unresponsive. LaFountain was never detained and has yet to be named a person of interest in her untimely death. Smith-Fields’ family wasn’t notified of her death until 2 days later and a criminal investigation was not opened until over a month later.
#BrendaLeeRawls was a 53 year old Bridgeport woman who left her home to visit a friend on December 11th and seemingly vanished. It wasn’t until days later that her family was searching for answers that they were notified Rawls had actually died in her sleep early December 12th.
At first glance, the bill sounds fundamental, but will be monumental in the sense of bridging a gap between families and the police department. State Senator Dennis Bradley agrees as a co-sponsor of the bill calling it “no brainer.”
“This is such a basic concept that we think should take place in the state of Connecticut to ensure human dignity, we want to make sure that the family is treated with a delicacy in a delicate situation that it deserves,” Bradley said during a public meeting back in March per the local @NBC affiliate WVIT.
Now, this bill won’t reform police but we can keep fingers crossed that it’ll at least have them use some percentage of common sense and courtesy along with placing accountability for them to #DoTheRightThing! #BWLM💕#SayHerName#SayTheirNames
