Why you're not Officers Friendly anymore, Reason #whatever:

You're thieves and vandals who screw people around and destroy their property.  Because you can, and you don't like those peasants having guns.
The Torrance Police Department failed to return 17 surrendered firearms worth $15,800 to their rightful owner, ignored two court orders to do so and then destroyed them after almost three years of illegally holding the weapons, according to a lawsuit against the city by gun advocacy groups.
Well, isn't that just wonderful?  The excuse:
Instead, he blamed a state Department of Justice letter advising law enforcement agencies that they needed to retain the firearms unless their owner could provide proof of ownership and register some of them.

That DOJ letter, he wrote in an email “was an incorrect interpretation” of the state law.

“Apparently, other cities such as San Francisco and Oakland have also been sued based on the same erroneous interpretation and those cities settled their cases and revised their procedures.”
Californicated DOJ.  Need we say more?
“The DOJ’s LEGR (Law Enforcement Gun Release) letter wrongly tells police to not give guns back unless the person can document ownership of the gun and it is registered in the DOJ’s database. The law doesn’t require this, and gun owners can’t comply anyway, because police routinely fail to enter the firearms into the DOJ’s database, and most people don’t have receipts for the guns they own.
Remember New Orleans?  "Prove to us this gun is yours.  We don't care that your house is gone and all those records.  Show us a receipt, not just your own inventory, or you don't get it."  Nothing in state or city law, as I recall, just what NOPD decided to do.  In this case, the law DOES NOT REQUIRE THAT, but Californicated decided it does('Because we say so').

Kranke didn’t address why a lawsuit was required to force Torrance to do exactly the same thing.
Because they didn't want to give the guns back, and so violated law and court orders as long as they could.