How does a police department “lose” a car for more than a month?

That’s what Carlos Yescas and his family wanted to know after the 18-year-old Vallejo resident was arrested in his hometown. The 2003 Mercedes-Benz C32 AMG that the young man had bought weeks earlier with $3,500 he’d earned as a sushi chef was impounded.

In my first column about the disturbing video showing the Jan. 31 arrest of Yescas by Vallejo police Lt. Michael Nichelini, I wrote that Yescas had given up getting his car back after police towed it and told him they couldn’t find it.

Police had Yescas’ car towed as he sat in the back of the police car, handcuffed, in an incident that began as a traffic infraction. It was the last time Yescas saw his car.

I received more than two dozen emails from readers asking me some variation of this simple question: What happened to the car?

It’s a question Vallejo police refused to answer for Yescas, and initially would not answer for me. But, finally, on Tuesday, they offered an explanation.

They say they’re selling the car.

“A lien on the vehicle has been completed, and as of March 14th it has been authorized for sale per the law,” the Police Department wrote in an email to me.

When a vehicle is impounded, state law requires that a certified letter is sent to the registered owner. Yescas, who purchased the car on Jan. 6 as a birthday present to himself, wasn’t listed as the registered owner. He had a DMV appointment on Feb. 12 to take his driver’s test and to register the car.

“All correspondence regarding an impound or other tow is done solely with the registered owner,” the police email said, noting the car’s registration was suspended by the DMV on Jan. 25. “In this case, the registered owner’s listed address is in San Francisco. Yescas is not listed as the registered owner.”

But there is a lot that’s troubling about both the way police handled the arrest and the impounding of this car.

Here’s a brief recap of what happened: Before he went to work, Yescas and his 12-year-old brother drove the short distance from their house to a neighborhood market for taco meat. Yescas doesn’t have a license, and his car was not registered. But he had a learner’s permit. Nichelini, who was in street clothes and an unmarked vehicle, approached Yescas’ car after Yescas parked outside the market with the window down.

He says Nichelini didn’t immediately state he was a police officer. Yescas thought he was just some guy messing with him because the car didn’t have a license plate. The situation quickly escalated. As Nichelini dragged Yescas out of the car, Yescas says he was choked by the seat belt strap that was wrapped around his body. The incident was recorded by Yescas’ brother. In the video, Nichelini is seen flinging Yescas to the ground and dropping his knee into Yescas’ back as Yescas wails in pain.

According to police, Nichelini was driving in the area when he saw “a vehicle with no license plates fail to stop at a marked stop sign and almost collide with another vehicle.” Yescas denied running the stop sign or almost hitting another car.

First, there’s no question police knew when they were towing the car that it belonged to Yescas.

As he was handcuffed, Yescas says he pleaded with officers not to tow the vehicle. Karina Guerrero, whose parents own Guanajuato Market, was working when Yescas was arrested. She told police the car could remain in the lot. Yescas says he even asked police if he could sign the car’s title over to Guerrero in an effort to stop it from getting towed. The title was in the car.

It was towed — title and all, and police took Yescas to headquarters on Amador Street and placed him in a cell with blood on the wall. (Whose blood? That’s for another column.)

“When I said I didn’t have any identification, he was like, ‘You know what that means. This car’s mine,’” Yescas told me earlier this week, recounting what he says Nichelini said to him.

Melissa Nold, an attorney representing Yescas, said police should have used their discretion and not towed the car. Police could have left the car in the lot and saved everyone time and money.

“Towing is never mandatory unless there’s been some sort of physical injury,” she said. “They chose to tow the car. Failing to use discretion in a situation like that is why the public doesn’t trust (police).”

And here we are. Vallejo police need to do better in the communities of color they are sworn to serve and to protect. Because this doesn’t seem like service to help Vallejoans. This young man made mistakes, yes. But the treatment he got from police seems like an abuse of power.

Since the fatal shooting of Willie McCoy on Feb. 9, the department has been under scrutiny for the alleged aggressive and excessive use of force by its officers.

Yescas, who started a new job cooking at an Italian restaurant this week, still feels pain in his shoulder and back from the arrest. Three days after his mother, Wendy Martinez, posted the video of his arrest on Facebook, she said a police officer tailed her husband, Francisco Melchor, as he drove to work.

Vallejo’s public officials have remained conspicuously silent about allegations of police misconduct.

While I was reporting this column, a City Hall source told me that City Council members were told not to comment on the police because of pending litigation. On April 9, the council will have a closed session special meeting where council members will “conference with legal counsel” about “significant exposure to litigation,” according to the council’s agenda, which notes there are 68 cases to be discussed.

For Yescas, who appears in Solano County Superior Court on Thursday for four minor traffic violations, it feels like his car was taken from him.

Yescas found his car on the marketplace app Offer Up.

“Soon as I had my license, that’s when we were going to start looking, but I got ahead of myself,” he said. “If I waited, I knew it wasn’t going to be there.”

As he sat in the back of a patrol car, officers told Yescas there would be a 30-day hold on his car. Then, the police could have told him what they told me — that “correspondence regarding an impound or other tow is done solely with the registered owner.” Instead, he got the runaround.

Sometimes his calls to police would get disconnected as he was transferred around. Sometimes he’d be on hold for more than 10 minutes until he hung up. The tow company, Arrow Towing, told Yescas they had no record of the tow. I was told the same thing.

The last time he called, on April 1, Yescas was told the VIN number was not in the system.

“They said they had no information (on the car),” he said. “They told me to check with the DMV, because they’re not getting a hit in the system with those numbers.”

His car was already up for sale.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr