HOW THE ROD RUN’s SECOND ACT BECAME A TRAIN WRECK

Temecula, CA – My home dictionary defines ‘tragedy’ as, ‘a serious drama describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (as Destiny), having a sad end that excites pity or terror; a disastrous event. The occurrences of March 8^th that led to the death of Shaun Vilan may never be fully known except to God. The tavern where the initial confrontation started says no one was served any alcohol there, implying that all parties were either sober or all parties were served alcohol somewhere else. All information about the off-duty officer was kept from the press so there is no way to check the past history of the off-duty cop. What we do know is that besides being a year away from his Master’s, Shaun Vilan had a past history of violent confrontation. We know that Shaun Vilan’s group of eleven people became involved with the cop’s party of nine when the cop slapped or grabbed a woman’s buttocks in Shaun’s group. The apology offered by the cop to the woman’s husband failed to sooth the alienation that occurred and probably the incident simmered. After the cop left to take a breather, either to grab some fresh air or clear his head, Shaun’s group split into two’s to look for said cop, missing him as he sat across the street behind a van. It is perhaps then the off-duty policeman armed himself. Several minutes later after discovering the cop, the conflict came to a tragic end as Shaun, the father to a seven year old son, lay dead and the wingman to Shaun, wounded after being shot in the ass, possible only if the man was fleeing the cop. We may never know how much alcohol played in raising the temperaments of all parties involved, but it seems that restraint, which could have prevented things from reaching a fatal fever point, was dulled. It is also almost a given, due to the recent political rhetoric and flap over the latest Vogue cover, that had the two opposing groups been different colors or cultures, the authorities would have been alerted to ‘possible trouble’ on the horizon by the tavern owners, who because of the newness of their liquor license, would have wanted to avoid any such trouble. The deadly consequences that took place could have been averted had any of the peripheral people either identified the off-duty cop as a cop, had doused water on the fire-fight, or intervened and alerted security. For these reasons, the blame for this tragedy has to be placed on all the parties present but not the two combatants. As the definition stated at the beginning of this article, Destiny started when the two men (Shaun and the off-duty cop) crossed paths. It was up to the supporting players of this real life drama to change Fate. Unfortunately they didn’t.