Banksy supporters work to prevent removal of the British street artist's work on Urban Outfitters

Dozens of onlookers loitered behind the army green walls of Urban Outfitters on the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Kinross Avenue this afternoon ““ but they weren’t there to shop.

A stream of visitors posed for iPhone photos and touched the surface of the alley wall depicting a stenciled image of a child toting a crayon-fueled machine gun nicknamed “The Crayola Shooter.”

The image is among the latest works by the elusive British street artist known simply as Banksy.

Westwood’s piece is among four spray painted designs to appear in Los Angeles this week, but they’re also subject to erasure. Images of an intoxicated Mickey and Minnie Mouse on a Sunset Boulevard billboard were removed Wednesday shortly after their appearance.

Fear of a similar removal of the Westwood “Crayola Shooter” inspired third-year psychology student Mickey Khan and a group of friends to create the Facebook group “Protest against removal of Banksy WESTWOOD/UCLA” Wednesday night.

According to Khan, the group would like to negotiate with the Urban Outfitters’ property manager to ensure the artwork is unscathed.

“We actually have a piece of his work,” Khan said. “It’s on an Urban Outfitters, that’s basically their culture.”

According to Urban Outfitters’ employees Chris Melgar, 28 and Brandon Warden, 22, the store quickly sold out of its stock of Banksy art books after the stenciled art was first spotted on the back of the building early Wednesday. Melgar and Warden said that they were unaware of any efforts to remove the street art entirely but that maintenance requests to clean spray-painted images from the store’s back door and “No Parking” sign had been fulfilled.

“Graffiti artwork is only a crime if conducted in a criminal manner,” said senior lead police officer Chris Ragsdale, who was among onlookers.

Ragsdale said that the property owner, not the city, will have ultimate control over whether the piece stays.

Khan and his growing following of supporters will attempt to ensure that the work remains as an artistic Westwood landmark.

“You look at a lot of places in L.A. ““ we have graffiti from people that are no-name people, they’re just doing it to represent something and we keep a lot of that work,” Khan said. “A lot of (the work) gets taken away, but Banksy’s can’t last a week?”