I don't require police to martyr themselves. My own problem with the Garner homicide is that I don't think they needed to tackle Garner at all. An even more cynical view is that they wanted to tackle him, wanted an excuse to act violently, and cultivated that situation hoping for that end (not necessarily that they wanted to kill him, but they wanted an arrest, and were game for a use of force). I don't know the whole truth of it but I do know that the basis of it was tax evasion, not an imminent threat to public safety that needed immediate detention at all costs.