San Francisco police officers shattered a man’s car window, dragged him from his vehicle and pepper-sprayed him during a wrongful arrest that a watchdog agency says stemmed from a preventable law enforcement error.
The man, who was later cleared of wrongdoing, reportedly died by suicide after the detention and resulting legal fallout caused him to lose everything.
The San Francisco Department of Police Accountability (DPA), the city’s police oversight agency, said Monday that two officers used excessive force when they arrested Matthew Ludwig on the night of July 4, 2024, after mistakenly believing he was driving a stolen vehicle.
According to the DPA’s findings, the incident began because authorities had entered the wrong license plate number into their system.
Police then followed Ludwig and broke the window of his Honda Accord while he was stopped at a red light, the watchdog agency said.
The officers, identified in a complaint filed by the DPA on May 28 as Jonathan Zepeda and Vinesh Govindbhai, then pulled Ludwig from the car and forced him onto the street.
The complaint states that Zepeda drew his firearm while Govindbhai pushed Ludwig’s shoulders and head down toward the pavement.
Body camera footage released by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office showed Govindbhai ordering Ludwig to “put your f***ing hands behind your back” moments after pulling him out of the vehicle.
Govindbhai then warned Ludwig that he was ‘about to get sprayed’ before pepper-spraying his face in very close proximity.
Matthew Ludwig, of San Francisco, was dangerously pepper-sprayed when he was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department on July 4, 2024, according to findings from the city’s Department of Police Accountability
Ludwig was stopped by police after they entered the wrong license plate into their system
Subsequent body camera footage showed a cuffed Ludwig laid on the sidewalk as an officer doused his face with what looked like water.
‘I can’t breathe,’ Ludwig said multiple times.
‘Do you need an ambulance?’ an officer asked him, while a distressed Ludwig continued to repeat that he could not breathe.
The watchdog agency said the incident happened around 11.20pm, and that the ‘erroneous check’ showed a license plate belonging to a Toyota, rather than Ludwig’s Honda.
The two officers ‘pinned in’ Ludwig’s car after catching up, but they did not reenter the license plate number into their system.
Govindbhai then bashed in the driver’s side window with four hits of his baton before grabbing Ludwig by his hooded sweatshirt and pulling him out of the vehicle.
He ‘made no realistic attempts to talk to Ludwig—or even order him out of the car—to investigate the moving violation as is ordinary when a person has run a red light,’ according to the complaint.
The DPA said that Govindbhai had ‘other feasible, less intrusive force options readily available,’ such as knocking on the door, ordering Ludwig out of his vehicle or opening the unlocked door.
Govindbhai explained he had acted that way partly because he was in an area supposedly known to police ‘as a high drug trafficking area and suspects with warrants,’ per the complaint.
He also added: ‘Based on my training and experience I know that when vehicle’s [sic] flee at the sight of police and get stuck in traffic, suspects will often collide with other vehicle’s [sic] in an attempt to flee.’
Zepeda claimed he had ‘observed from a long eye the Honda running multiple red lights,’ according to the DPA’s complaint.
Ludwig, on the floor, repeatedly told police officers that he could not breathe after being pepper-sprayed
Body camera footage after the stop showed an officer dousing Ludwig’s face with what appeared to be water
After the incident, Ludwig was arrested, booked into jail and charged with reckless driving and resisting arrest, according to the DPA.
He could not afford the impound fee for his car and lost it at the subsequent auction, the watchdog agency said.
The DPA said that prosecutors’ final offer to Ludwig was diversion, which would have allowed him to avoid a criminal conviction ‘while still taking accountability for what they’ve done wrong.’
‘But Ludwig hadn’t done anything wrong,’ the watchdog agency added.
Ludwig was found dead last September 11 in Kentucky, according to the Rowan County Coroner’s Office.
The Morehead Police Department said at the time that the scene of his death appeared to be a suicide.
‘The officers involved in this have no idea the harm that their actions caused,’ Brandon Coleman, the Deputy Public Defender who represented Ludwig, said Monday.
Ludwig’s Honda Accord was ‘pinned in’ by the two police officers and they did not reenter his license plate number into their system, according to the watchdog agency
San Francisco Police Department officer Vinesh Govindbhai smashed the driver’s side window of Ludwig’s car with four hits of his baton
Coleman said that Ludwig ‘lost virtually everything that he owned’ after the arrest, as the RV that he shared with his girlfriend was towed days later.
‘He told me that he felt like this world lacked compassion for human life and that he had never been given a fair chance in life,’ Coleman added.
The leader of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office integrity unit, Brian Cox, blasted the two officers’ conduct during Ludwig’s arrest.
‘Nothing justifies the amount of violence that SFPD officers used on Mr. Ludwig, especially when it stemmed from their own mistake,’ Cox said.
He added: ‘This case shows how easily police can wrongfully target someone, unnecessarily escalate an encounter, and take away that person’s freedom.’
The San Francisco Public Defender, Mano Raju, urged the police’s commission and its leadership to act on the findings.
The San Francisco Police Department told Our News Outlet on Tuesday afternoon: ‘Due to pending litigation, we are precluded providing a statement at this time.’
The police department redirected questions to the City Attorney’s Office.
The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office told Our News Outlet on Tuesday afternoon: ‘We cannot comment on this. Any legal advice and analysis on this matter would be protected by attorney-client privilege and not subject to release.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office for comment.
