BOSTON — Boston City Council — already under fire over a string of transparency controversies, public-meeting access disputes, and chamber arrests during Mayor Michelle Wu's $4.9 billion budget hearings — took a fresh hit this week when a Hub watchdog filed a four-count Open Meeting Law complaint accusing the body of unlawfully removing a citizen from a May 6 public hearing and then approving official minutes the complaint brands "inaccurate and incomplete."
The complaint, filed June 24 by Boston resident Brian McCarter under G.L. c. 30A § 23(b), alleges the Council violated four separate provisions of state open-meeting law in one episode: the §20(f) right to record, the §20(a) right to attend, the §20(g) limits on removal, and the §22(a) accuracy requirement for minutes.
The underlying incident — Boston Police hauling a citizen out of City Hall chambers for the act of recording an open public meeting — was first reported by MDN on June 23, including on-tape audio of a Boston Police officer admitting the removal order was issued because the citizen was recording. McCarter's complaint now formalizes the open-meeting case against the body itself.
Multiple Boston Police officers surround Shawn Nelson inside Boston City Hall during the May 6 incident. Body-camera footage timestamp 2026-05-06 13:01:35. Image: BPD body-camera (AXON BODY 4).
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The minutes are the most damning piece. Section 22(a) requires meeting minutes to summarize the discussions and actions taken, accurately. The minutes for May 6, approved by the Council on May 13, omit the 20-minute police removal entirely. They describe it in a single word: "Recess." The complaint calls that official record "inaccurate and incomplete" — a transparency body convicted by its own paperwork.
The §20(g) removal power, the complaint argues, is a last resort, available only after the chair issues a clear warning and an order to withdraw. No such warning or order from the chair appears anywhere in the meeting record. The §20(f) right to record is absolute, subject only to reasonable equipment limits, and any temporary denial of that right is a violation in itself. Allowing the citizen back into the chamber only on condition that he stop recording does not erase the violation — it confirms one.
Shawn Nelson recording the May 6 Boston City Council budget hearing — the act for which Boston Police removed him from the chamber. Image: BPD body-camera footage.
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McCarter, who did not attend the May 6 meeting and was not the resident who was removed, filed in his individual capacity — a category the Attorney General's office has long recognized as having standing (OML 2017-32) — and inside the 30-day window the AG's regulations allow. His filing stacks AG precedent on the statute: an open and obvious recording device is itself notice to the chair (OML 2018-4); a public body cannot require advance notice of intent to record (OML 2014-8); directing or restricting recording is itself a violation (OML 2019-67); removing a person from an open session denies the right to attend (OML 2022-237).
He is asking the Council to acknowledge the violations, issue a public statement that recording is never grounds for removal, retrain councillors and chamber officers under the Open Meeting Law with the Attorney General, and amend the May 6 minutes to reflect what actually happened. He has expressly preserved his right under §23(b) to escalate to the AG's Division of Open Government if the Council does not satisfy the complaint within 14 business days — putting the matter on Attorney General Andrea Campbell's desk by mid-July.
The pressure is now coming from two directions. Shawn Nelson — the Pressley primary challenger MDN first reported being hauled out of the May 6 hearing by Boston Police — said in an audio statement this week that he is "in the process of filing paperwork to civilly sue the city of Boston for violating my rights on May 6 during the budget hearing." Nelson said body-camera footage he obtained from officers "shows this was nothing more than retaliation and a violation of my rights and the meeting laws of Massachusetts," and added that his civil filing will be brought by "the same lawyer that represented Karen Read in her case" — a reference to the defense team in the high-profile Karen Read trial. "Now it'd be finally time for me to strike back and hold them actually accountable for their irresponsibility and the abuse of their authorities," Nelson said.
For a chamber that exists to conduct the people's business in public, the official record of the people's business is now the body's own indictment. The Attorney General will be asked to fix it — and Nelson says a court will be asked to make the city pay for it.
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