Police Had Our Stolen Car Impounded And Expect Us To Pay

Location: Little Rock, AR. About 2 weeks ago, my partner’s car was stolen from the place we are currently living. The car is not insured as it is pretty well totaled (due to the elements) It was his older car that died a year or two ago where he used to live, but we managed to get it up and running to at least relocate it here. Our housing is an extended stay suite and we were misplaced back in November from our old place of residence. Where we are currently staying is very temporary. Most of our belongings are either in storage, or in our room. However, we still have a lot of our clothes and some things that are irreplaceable in his car because they were between transition of storage and moving stuff up here. All of this is relevant to avoid questions about if it’s worth recovery etc.

A few weeks ago, he made an ad trying to see about potentially seeing if anyone wanted to buy the car for parts (and we have been trying to make room for the stuff still down in the car; we have literally a room to live in so space is limited). Then about 2 weeks ago, we discovered the car had been stolen and it had been in our parking lot just days prior. Camera footage was already gone, etc. We contacted police, put up posts on fb etc. and within a day, the car had been located about an hour and a half away. Somehow, the details are still supposedly under investigation, someone stole the car by using some kind of wrecker vehicle, took it, SOLD it to a scrap yard, and then was located and taken to an impound. We are now being told we have to pay $400 to retrieve his own car in spite of it legally being his, and this is specifically what the police themselves told him. It’s insane we’re expected to pay $400+ to get our own property back. What can be done about this?

Edit: My partner is going to speak with the impound to lot to see if we can trade over the car for the allowance of getting all of our stuff.

And for anyone unsure, the property we live at did not have it towed. It was definitively stolen. I forgot to add some details that explain it was the direct result of theft.

Thank you all for your advice, and I will follow up once I have an update.