Pass bill on family member notification

The pain of losing a loved one, especially when it happens unexpectedly, is something that no public policy could make better. What we can do, however, is take steps to ensure that no one is making it worse than it has to be. Two high-profile cases in Bridgeport in recent months showed how that can happen. Both Lauren Smith-Fields and Brenda Lee Rawls died in December, and in each case, family members were not notified by police. Instead, family members had to take steps on their own to find out what had happened, which only added to their grief.

Though the cases were unrelated, the similarities were striking. Both were Black women who were not thought to be in danger, and in neither case were families informed of their deaths as quickly as they should have been. Though pressure has mounted locally on Bridgeport officials to do better, a solution should come at a higher level.

The General Assembly’s Public Safety and Security Committee voted this week to advance a bill requiring police to tell family members that their loved ones have died within 24 hours of identifying a body. The bill would empower the inspector general, the state’s independent prosecutor who investigates police use of deadly force, to investigate if police don’t try to notify families of a loved one’s death.

That shouldn’t be controversial, and in fact seems like a basic responsibility of a city and a public service agency. But the bill, though it advanced, was supported by only 13 of the 23 committee members after receiving nearunanimous support in the Judiciary Committee earlier this session.

The difference appears to be that in the time between the two votes, the newly created Office of the Inspector General came into public view for the first time since its creation following the passage of a police accountability law in 2020, which itself arose from widespread protests in Connecticut and beyond against police brutality. The inspector general filed charges against a white state trooper who killed a Black teenager in 2020.

The issues, of course, are unrelated. But it certainly appears that some members of the General Assembly

were expressing disappointment with the officer’s charges by declining to support a separate bill that also involves the same newly created office.

That shouldn’t stop the bill from passing. The case against the state trooper will proceed, as it must, and everyone should allow the process to continue without outside interference. This is what the police accountability law was designed for.

The bill on notification is an important one, but it’s not as though there aren’t other connections, too. Many in Bridgeport questioned whether white women would have had their families quickly notified in the event of their deaths, and while there’s no way to prove that question one way or another, it does raise issues in the community.

The specific issue at hand can be answered by ensuring notification of family members in every case. Reasonable efforts must be made to find survivors and inform them of their loved one’s death. Passage of this bill should be an easy call.

The bill, though it advanced, was supported by only 13 of the 23 committee members after receiving near-unanimous support in the Judiciary Committee earlier this session.