Guards Foil an Attempt to Loot The Gap : Crime: Thieves leave heaps of trendy wear behind as they flee. Shots fired at their van failed to stop them.

Like Andy Warhol, the burglars wanted khakis.

They hauled almost 300 sets of stone-washed jeans, button-down tops, and other pieces of trendy garb toward their van, preparing to flee with an estimated $10,000 worth of hip apparel from The Gap store on Ventura Boulevard before the store opened for the day.

But two guards caught them in the act. As the robbers dashed into the van to flee, they left the heaps of garments in the parking lot. A guard fired five shots at the tires of the fleeing van, but the robbers got away.

The preshrunk cotton loot, however, was safe.

The burglary attempt was not unusual, said Los Angeles Police Detective Bob Hart. Two or three times a month, he said, burglars smash into clothing stores and snatch thousands of dollars’ worth of inventory.

“Clothing stores can be more easily hit,” Hart said. As opposed to jewelry stores, which keep their wares in safes after business hours, clothing stores “can’t put the clothing away every night without a hassle,” he said.

Hart said the seven thieves who broke through the rear window of The Gap on Ventura near Yolanda Avenue Saturday morning apparently were professionals, although this may have been their first San Fernando Valley heist.

About 6:30 a.m. the two guards who patrol that block of Ventura Boulevard heard glass shattering, Hart said. In the parking lot, they saw the burglars carrying armfuls of apparel from the store and returning for more.

The thieves spotted one of the guards and dashed to the getaway van and another nearby car. As they screeched off, a guard fired at the rear tires of the van.

“It didn’t work as far as stopping them,” Hart said. “It worked as far as relieving frustration.”