NORTH : LA HABRA : Jewelry Bandits Go to Extremes in Loot

For detectives in La Habra and Newport Beach trying to sort out two jewelry heists Friday, it was a study in extremes.

Only hours after a posh Newport Beach jewelry store was robbed of $2-million worth of merchandise Thursday, bandits struck at a Bullock’s La Habra jewelry counter and got away with only a $200 watch, police said.

Three of the bandits used hammers to try to smash a Bullock’s display case that wouldn’t break--it was made of break-resistant plastic. And when they opened the display case, all the jewelry automatically fell into a lower vault compartment out of their reach. The theft protections left the holdup men with only the watch, which failed to drop with the rest of the items.

The four were gone within minutes of their entry into Bullock’s and never confronted any employees. One store worker who saw them trying to smash the display case ducked out of sight.

In the Newport Beach incident, detectives were looking for a gold-colored Ford Taurus and a maroon Mercedes-Benz that were used as the getaway cars by four bandits after they abandoned a gray Buick in a parking lot shortly after the robbery at Carol Klein Fine Jewelry in Newport Center.

Three of the men burst through a locked door shortly after 10 a.m., put the entire contents of the closet-sized safe into a plastic trash can and tied up the lone employee and customer before escaping.