Two officers with the San Francisco Police Department spotted what they thought was a stolen car being driven through the city on July 4, 2024. At a red light, one officer rushed out of the patrol car, smashed the driver’s-side window and pulled the driver to the ground.
One officer then pepper-sprayed the driver in the face as another put him in handcuffs.
But the officers had entered the wrong license plate into their computer and didn’t realize their mistake until after the driver, Matthew Ludwig, was in handcuffs, urging them to call an ambulance because he couldn’t breathe, according to an investigation by the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability…