Tank man happened after much of the fighting and violence that had happened in the previous days (and nights especially) so the tanks were definitely there for pre-emptive defense/a threat to escalation.

Even western reporters like the BBC's John Simpson (very much part of the British establishment class then and now) reported at the time that there was violent clashes less in the square itself, but mostly in the side streets between armed protestors (many of whom have since admitted they were funded or straight up supplied with weapons by the US) and Chinese state police and military - with shooting on both sides plus a lot of beatings and firebombs from the insurrectionist elements.

John Simpson himself has told the story for decades of how he witnessed a smaller group amongst a bigger amount of protestors firebomb a military truck killing the driver. The passengers who jumped out were then set up and beaten to death or almost by the protestors. He apparently intervened, waving a stick/post and his press badge at them to try and drag one of thr badly beaten soldiers out of the mob. His reporting at the time and in recounting that story afterwards makes no secret of the fact that he saw those groups of protestors/insurrectionists as a murderous and bloodthirsty mob, not as peaceful protestors defending themselves. In recent years during the new cold War and red scare against China he's soften his criticism of the protestors and upped his anti-China rhetoric a bit, but has never disputed his original reporting or it's conclusions.

So there absolutely was violence and bloodshed. Innocent people on both sides were likely caught in it. But basically no one at the time, including explicitly pro-West, anti-China reporters, saw a one sided massacre of the state firing on peaceful crowds.

Similarly you can go and look up interviews with the Canadian photographer who took the famous tank man photo. Most of the more recent ones are him getting visibly annoyed at news presenters undermining his account by trying to force this fictional narrative that only came about many years later as anti-China propaganda. And like John Simpson, he's absolutely anti-China in general, but doesn't like that the risks he took for his reporting has been undermined by a sensationalist fiction.