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Local Black Lives Matter group attending Plainfield meeting after 'white male privilege' comment

Posted at 1:49 PM, Dec 07, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-07 17:38:51-05

PLAINFIELD, Ind. -- The central Indiana Black Lives Matter group, known as Don't Sleep, will attend the Plainfield Board of Police Commissioners meeting Thursday night.

The meeting is to decide the professional fate of a police captain who was placed on administrative leave after making a comment about "white male privilege" during a training session last month.

According to a Facebook post, Don't Sleep is attending the meeting to "show up in support of the Plainfield Police Department acknowledging the racial bias that permeates the police departments nationwide." 

The comment came on Nov. 1, at the Police Supervisors Transgender Awareness Training session.

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About halfway through the presentation Captain Scott Arndt, a 28-year veteran of the Plainfield Police Department, spoke up, asking questions about a certain statistic presented -- that transgender people are 3.32 times more likely to experience police violence, compared to non-transgendered people. 

"My life has never been part of police violence," Arndt said. "Most of the people that I know have never been ... accused the police of violence (sic), so I guess I don't get where that statistic comes from."

At that time, Captain Carri Weber interrupted, saying, "Because of your white male privilege, so you wouldn't know."

Arndt was suspended without pay for two days after the incident, for conduct unbecoming a Plainfield Police officer. Weber was placed on paid administrative leave for not only the Nov. 1 incident, but other disciplinary history over the past six months, according to a release from the Town of Plainfield.

The Don't Sleep Facebook post said the following about the meeting: 

On November 1,2017 there was a training sessions that involved officers from the Plainfield Police Department. During that training, one of the officers responded to another officer and highlighted that he has white privilege. In response to this officers comments, she has been placed on administrative leave. The police commissioners will be meeting tomorrow night to discuss this case and determine what action will be taken. This meeting is open to the public. We encourage people to show up in support of the Plainfield Police Department acknowledging the racial bias that permeates the police departments nationwide. Feel free to wear your Black Lives Matter attire. We are unsure if the public will have an opportunity to speak at this meeting. However, we want to send a very clear message that denying the existence of white privilege is no longer an option. Black Lives Matter and the police departments should create a culture of being able to acknowledge when an officer might not be recognizing it.
 

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