Costa Mesa police officer cleared in fatal shooting

Investigators say an off-duty Costa Mesa police officer acted in self-defense when he shot and killed one man and wounded another after he was attacked last month outside a restaurant in Old Town Temecula.

Riverside County sheriff’s detectives interviewed more than 20 people in the area where the incident took place, including eyewitnesses, before concluding that Officer Scott Dibble, 31, a nine-year veteran, was the victim in the assault.

Shaun Vilan, 30, of Temecula was killed in the shooting. Taylor Willis, 22, also of Temecula, was treated at a hospital and later released.

Lt. John Schultz of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department’s Central Homicide Unit said of Dibble:

“He was attacked by four or five men in which Shaun Vilan was the aggressor. Someone came up behind him and hit him with something we think was a chair.”

Schultz said Vilan probably wasn’t the one who struck Dibble with the chair.

Vilan “was in the officer’s face hitting and punching him,” Schultz said. “The officer was extremely bloody.”

The shooting occurred March 8 after the annual Rod Run, a classic car show in Old Town Temecula.

Authorities and witnesses said Vilan and his friends were standing in line at the restaurant, the Bank of Mexican Food, when Dibble touched the buttocks of a woman who was the wife of Vilan’s best friend.

Investigators said it was a case of mistaken identity, that Dibble thought he was grabbing his own wife. Words were exchanged, but there was no fighting.

But at some point Dibble, who felt ill, went outside and was set upon by Vilan and the other unidentified men, investigators said. He was hit in the head with a heavy object, then repeatedly punched and stomped.

“Witnesses said he made every attempt to identify himself as a police officer,” Schultz said. “Then he fired five shots.”

The shots came from a five-shot, .38-caliber revolver, Schultz said.

Dibble had a deep gash on his head and was hospitalized, but he has since returned to duty.

After the brawl, people told conflicting stories about what had happened.

Friends of Vilan said he was the victim. Kevin Kitley, 29, said Dibble had slapped his wife Nicole’s buttocks so hard it hurt.

He called it a “sexual assault” and said his wife told him that Dibble was noticeably drunk. After Vilan left the restaurant, Kitley said, Dibble and several other men attacked him.

Investigators said eyewitnesses who were not associated with any of those involved confirmed the officer’s story.

Schultz said there was no evidence that Dibble was intoxicated.

An internal Costa Mesa police investigation will determine whether the officer violated any departmental policies.

Vilan spent six years at Soledad State Prison for hitting a man in the face with a beer bottle. He had been working as a day trader since he got out of prison and had a 7-year-old son.

The Riverside County district attorney’s office will consider whether to file charges against the other men involved in the attack.

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david.kelly@latimes.com