The NAACP and family of Che Taylor maintain that his fatal shooting by police was cold blooded murder.
The NAACP and family of Che Taylor maintain that his fatal shooting by Seattle police on February 21 was murder. Police say Taylor reached for a gun and disobeyed commands as they approached. Ansel Herz

The family of Che Taylor is hosting an event about police-community relations at the Seattle Vocational Institute in the Central District tonight. According to Andre Taylor, the slain man's older brother, police chief Kathleen O'Toole expressed an interest in attending the event, but ultimately decided not to come.

"She gave me a firm commitment at first," Taylor said in a video on his Facebook page. "We went back and forth... and I guess some of her people, superiors and people might advise her, were strongly against her coming to speak to our community."

The February 21 shooting of Taylor highlighted a mistrust in the police department among African-Americans. According to surveys, levels of trust in the department have risen among some ethnic groups since the Department of Justice reform process got underway in 2012, but African-Americans remain skeptical of the department's integrity at roughly unchanged rates.Taylor's death sparked protests through downtown Seattle. The Seattle-King County NAACP called the killing a "cold blooded murder" and dismissed the Department of Justice-led reforms at SPD is a sham.

O'Toole and the police department had no comment on the event tonight.

Taylor said O'Toole expressed concerns about the event getting out of control and cautioned that she wouldn't be able to answer certain questions about an ongoing investigation. Taylor said that was understandable and he would personally make sure the event was run smoothly. "If you can't speak about certain issues, I'll let the community know so they know what to expect when you come," he said he assured her.

But late last week, O'Toole gave him a firm answer, he said: She wouldn't be coming.

"It's not that I think she's a bad person because I don't," Taylor said. "But I think it was a mistake on her part. And if not on her part, it was a mistake on the mayor's part, or whoever, not for her to come speak to a community that's in pain."

"Sometimes you have to do some unconventional things to make change," he said.

This decision fits with O'Toole's cautious, middle-of-the-road approach. In 2014, O'Toole told me she wouldn't hold a Black Lives Matter sign—unlike a police chief in Richmond, California—because it would be politically inappropriate. And earlier this year, she said she didn't have a position on making it less impossible to prosecute officers who kill in Washington (the state currently has one of the most restrictive statutes on police use of deadly force in the country).

The event tonight is at 6 p.m. at the Seattle Vocational Institute near 23rd and Jackson, Room 401.