Updated: 6:30 p.m. on June 15, 2026
Inglewood officials barred four family members and supporters of Bryan Bostic from attending City Council meetings on Tuesday afternoon, saying the four disrupted a meeting last week.
Each of the four people said they were greeted at City Hall on Tuesday with notices barring them from physically attending council meetings for the next 120 days. The four included two aunts, one activist and a longtime family friend of Bostic, who died in police custody on March 10.
“I feel disrespected to the highest level,” said Marie Darden, who is Bostic’s aunt and one of those barred from Tuesday’s council meeting.
None of the four made it into City Council chambers and police removed at least one more demonstrator from the meeting on Tuesday.
Mayor James Butts told The LA Local that the four individuals violated city rules of decorum.
“They were explained the rules of decorum, and you don’t get to interrupt meetings,” Butts said.
Members of Bostic’s family and activists have regularly demonstrated on city street corners and spoken at City Council meetings to protest Bostic’s death.
The LA County Medical Examiner ruled in May that Bostic’s death was accidental, due to the effects of methamphetamine, though family members say they don’t believe the medical examiner’s report tells a full story.
Bostic’s family filed a wrongful death claim against the city and its police department in April.
Can the city ban attendees from future meetings?
The city’s move to ban the four from future meetings may have violated federal free speech rights and state public meeting law, according to David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition.
“This is wrong on so many levels,” Loy said.
The LA Local reviewed the notices handed to two of the four people on Tuesday. The notices, which were not addressed by name, said the demonstrators “engaged in conduct that repeatedly and materially disrupted the orderly conduct of the meeting” on June 9 and did not comply with verbal warnings to stop.
The notices are drafted on letterhead from the Office of the City Attorney, but are unsigned.
“It’s just unfair to my family. A grieving family that doesn’t want anything but justice, transparency and accountability,” Darden said.
Sheila Bates, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, said she was handed the same 120-day meeting ban.
“They’re more concerned about a meeting being interrupted when a person’s life and a person’s family were interrupted,” Bates said.
Bates said Bostic’s family members had not been specifically warned that a decorum rules violation would lead to a 120-day ban.
Inglewood’s rules of decorum, including the city’s available enforcement options, are embedded with each City Council agenda.
The rules allow city officials to order members of the public to be removed from meetings for disruptions.
The city’s ban notices say they are based on the rules of decorum, a section of Inglewood’s municipal code that outlines similar regulations and “the city’s authority to maintain order during public meetings.”
But Loy, the first amendment attorney, said city rules aren’t allowed to supersede the Ralph M. Brown Act, and that nothing in the state public meeting law allows officials to ban members of the public from future meetings for conduct at past meetings.
“Assuming that a person is properly removed from a single meeting for genuine disruption, that’s all the [Brown Act] allows,” Loy said.
Butts adjourned the council meeting early on June 9 after demonstrators began calling out while Butts was reading the county medical examiner’s statement on Bostic’s death out loud.
A recording of the June 9 meeting, including audio of Butts’ exchange with demonstrators, is available on the “live” tab of the city’s YouTube page.
