Enough of this Sean Hannity type of nonsense. I think this line of argument takes away from the real point.
Solicitors who sell anything in public, who do so in front of other people's retail stores are a nuisance. When Giuliani became mayor he created special police units to crack down on ALL soliciting, for both legal and illegal items. Does anybody remember when squeegee guys would solicit business by cleaning windows or when sidewalk vendors overran many areas.
People didn't like that and police units were created to sweep from the streets those nuisances.
Garner was a nuisance. The merchants who's stores he used to stand in front of and hassle the customers called the police as they have done numerous times before. The police responded. Big Government didn't call the police. The citizen merchants did.
Sure Big Local Government does like its tax receipts. But let's keep it real here. Garner wasn't a tax rebel hero. He was a big fat nuisance and the citizen merchants who played by the rules didn't like that, so they called the police.
Others claim that the swarm of police was hanging around the neighborhood, and didn't like the fact that Garner had broken up a fight moments before.
In other words: "the merchants didn't call the cops - they were already there."