{"id":430066,"date":"2026-08-11T20:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/430066\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T20:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:38:12","slug":"san-francisco-police-misread-license-plate-and-violently-arrested-driver-watchdog-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/430066\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Police Misread License Plate and Violently Arrested Driver, Watchdog Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city\u2019s public defender has called for an audit of how and why officers can determine whether a car is stolen. <\/p>\n

Aug 11, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 12:44 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A San Francisco Police Department cruiser on Feb. 11, 2017. Two San Francisco Police Department officers mistakenly arrested a man suspected of stealing a car during a traffic stop in downtown San Francisco.\u00a0(Alex Emslie\/KQED)<\/p>\n

The San Francisco<\/a> public defender\u2019s office is demanding accountability after a watchdog agency found<\/a> two police officers used excessive force during a wrongful July 2024 arrest of a man they believed had stolen a car.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The man, Matthew Ludwig, was stopped at a traffic light in downtown San Francisco when Officer Vinesh Govindbhai smashed Ludwig\u2019s driver\u2019s side window with a baton, pulled him out of the car, pinned him down on the pavement and pepper-sprayed him in the face, according to a May 2025 complaint with the Department of Police Accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually Mr. Ludwig who was trying to de-escalate the encounter,\u201d said Brian Cox, integrity manager with the San Francisco public defender\u2019s office, who analyzed the body camera footage of the incident and filed Ludwig\u2019s claim<\/a> with the DPA.<\/p>\n

\"\"Still from body-camera footage of the July 4, 2024, arrest of Matthew Ludwig by San Francisco Police Department officers. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s telling the cops, \u2018Be cool.\u2019 \u2018Take it easy.\u2019 But at each turn, it was the cops who escalated the situation,\u201d Cox said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In police reports, Govindbhai and Officer Jonathan Zepeda said they\u2019d followed Ludwig\u2019s Honda Accord for several miles because they believed it was stolen. Only later, after the officers handcuffed Ludwig, did they realize they had entered the wrong license plate number, which was for a Toyota, not a Honda, the agency found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The SFPD declined to comment on the matter, citing ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n

Footage<\/a> shows Govindbhai opening the door and dragging Ludwig out by his hoodie as the driver protests.<\/p>\n

After struggling to handcuff Ludwig, whose left hand was pinned under his body, Govindbhai said, \u201cYou\u2019re about to get sprayed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aHe was attacked and injured and ultimately charged and dragged through the criminal legal system,\u201d Cox said, \u201cbecause they got the license plate wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox called for the officers to be disciplined and for an audit of the policies and information used to determine whether a car is stolen. That information currently is a black box, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city\u2019s public defender has called for an audit of how and why officers can determine whether a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-430066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}