The force police officers used against George Floyd last year in the moments preceding his death was “totally unnecessary,” a Minneapolis Police Department official testified on Friday. “Pulling him down to the ground face down and putting your knee on a neck for that amount of that amount of time, it’s just uncalled for,” Lt. Richard Zimmerman, the department’s highest-ranking official, told the court in Minneapolis during the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin. “I saw no reason why the officers felt they were in danger, if that’s what they felt,” he added. Floyd, 46, was arrested on May 25, 2020, for allegedly using a counterfeit bill at a convenience store. He resisted being handcuffed and then resisted being placed into a patrol car, telling officers he was claustrophobic and complaining he could not breathe. Chauvin and two other officers, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, pinned Floyd to the …