Two San Francisco police officers thought they had spotted a stolen car one night in July 2024. After stopping the vehicle, they smashed in a window, dragged out the driver and then tackled, pepper sprayed and handcuffed him. They had the wrong man.
The officers had typed the car’s license plate number incorrectly into their patrol car’s computer system.
A city agency that investigates complaints against the police said on Tuesday that the officers had used “excessive force” during the mistaken arrest of Matthew Ludwig, the driver. They violated multiple policies, the agency said in a report, including spraying him at close range and drawing a firearm without cause.
Despite the case of mistaken identity, prosecutors spent over a year seeking to convict Mr. Ludwig for reckless driving and resisting arrest. Fourteen months after the traffic stop, he was found dead in Kentucky, of an apparent suicide.
“Nothing justifies the amount of violence that S.F.P.D. officers used on Mr. Ludwig, especially when it stemmed from their own mistake,” Brian Cox, who leads the integrity unit of the San Francisco public defender’s office, said in a statement on Tuesday.
While representing Mr. Ludwig against the charges, the defender’s office filed the complaint resulting in the investigation by the city watchdog agency, the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability.
The district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Mr. Ludwig, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The San Francisco Police Department said it could not comment “due to pending litigation” and referred questions to the city attorney’s office, which said it had not been served a lawsuit on the matter.
It was unclear if the two officers, identified in the complaint as Jonathan Zepeda and Vinesh Govindbhai, had legal representation. Efforts to reach the officers on Tuesday were also unsuccessful.
Based on its findings, the watchdog agency will make a recommendation on disciplining the officers to either the San Francisco Police Department or the San Francisco Police Commission, the latter of which can terminate or decertify officers, Mr. Cox said.
Those recommendations are not made public. The discipline process can be lengthy because officers in California receive significant employment protections.
According to the complaint filed by the public defender’s office, the two officers spotted a Honda Accord late on July 4, 2024, that they believed to be stolen and pursued the driver. Officer Zepeda later said he had observed the car from a distance “running multiple red lights,” according to the complaint.
A few blocks away, Mr. Ludwig stopped behind several cars at a red light. The officers stopped behind him and got out of their car, but did not recheck the license plate, activate their patrol lights, order Mr. Ludwig to pull over or check if his door was unlocked, according to the complaint.
Body-camera footage shows one of the officers, identified in the complaint as Officer Govindbhai, smashing the driver’s-side window with a baton before dragging Mr. Ludwig from the car by the hood of his sweatshirt, pinning him to the ground and bashing his head into the pavement.
Before being forced into handcuffs, Mr. Ludwig can be heard on the video shouting, “I wasn’t doing nothing, bro.” An officer then sprayed him at very close range, directly into his eyes. A short time later, Mr. Ludwig can be heard wheezing and telling the officers repeatedly that he cannot breathe.
“This case shows how easily police can wrongfully target someone,” Mr. Cox said.
According to the complaint, the officers realized only after Mr. Ludwig was handcuffed that they had entered the license plate number incorrectly. But they proceeded to arrest him anyway.
The public defender’s officer said that Mr. Ludwig could not afford the impound fee necessary to recover his car and that the city had sold it at auction. Prosecutors then charged him with reckless driving and resisting arrest.
In September 2025, while charges against him were pending, Mr. Ludwig was found dead at a park in Morehead, Ky., according to the local police. He was 47.
Brandon Coleman, a deputy public defender who represented Mr. Ludwig, said in a statement that as a result of the arrest, his client had “lost virtually everything that he owned,” including his car and a recreational vehicle that he had shared with his girlfriend, which was towed a few days after the encounter.
Before his death, prosecutors had offered Mr. Ludwig’s lawyer the opportunity for him to avoid a criminal conviction if he would take responsibility for his actions.
“But Ludwig hadn’t done anything wrong,” the public defender’s office said.
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