Armed Men Rob Auto Parts Store, Grab 25 Guns : Crime: The bandits and stolen arms disappear from the wrecked getaway car after a 100-m.p.h. chase and crash down a freeway embankment.

Four armed men who robbed a store of 25 guns Friday led police on a chase reaching 100 m.p.h., then vanished after their car overturned down a freeway embankment.

The stolen weapons vanished with them.

“It was as if they had disappeared off of the freeway and no one knew what happened to them,” Lt. James Schoales said.

The gunmen walked into Southwest Automotive on Beach Boulevard, an auto parts store that also sells guns, about 1 p.m. and confronted a store clerk and a customer at gunpoint.

“The clerk was told to lie down flat on the floor, and he apparently didn’t do it fast enough so one guy grabbed him, threw him down on the floor and pointed a gun to his head,” Schoales said. They also handcuffed the customer, he said.

The gunmen took about 25 guns from display cases, including semiautomatic rifles, semiautomatic handguns, and a shotgun, and ran from the store, Schoales said.

Witnesses said the robbers got into a waiting red Thunderbird driven by a woman and drove south on Beach Boulevard. As they drove onto the westbound Riverside Freeway, a Buena Park police officer saw them.

The group fled at speeds up to 100 m.p.h., and disappeared from the officer’s sight at the interchange of the Artesia and Long Beach freeways. About five minutes later, officers found the car wrecked and abandoned at the bottom of a freeway embankment.

Police said that the getaway car had not been reported stolen and that they were looking for the registered owner. They did not release the owner’s name.

“The car is destroyed,” Schoales said. “All the suspects apparently fled on foot and took the guns with them. All of the stolen property was gone from the car.”

Schoales, a 24-year veteran of the force, said Friday’s incident was the first time he could think of that a gun store was robbed of so much merchandise.

“I think it’s a great concern that those guns are out there now,” Schoales said.