About That Documentary…

The other day we published a story about a local who did a documentary on Rafael McCloud terrorizing the city for a week.

It is a disturbing story and still a raw topic, obviously, for a lot of people.

I haven’t seen the documentary but am aware of it because one of our writers, Keith Phillips has been working so hard to get it done for almost 4 years now. It has been his passion side project that he’s worked towards in his off time.

He thought there would be some pushback because of the nature of the story but went with it anyway because he felt it was an important story that needed to be properly told.

VDN posted the story to support Keith. I am blown away by the response from the community. While there were a lot of purity posts some people close to Sharon Wilson seemed genuinely hurt by the effort. I personally feel bad about bringing up memories of that sort for those individuals. But it is newsworthy to report a documentary on that topic in this town.

VDN wasn’t reporting the news when McCloud was terrorizing the city. But I was very aware he was in my neighborhood every time we opened the doors at the Klondyke. It turns out he spent the whole week in the bayou behind the Klondyke and ended up dying in a house just up the hill from the Klondyke.

Let me address some misinformation in the comments on that story. VDN nor David Day are making anything from the documentary. We reported a story. The concept that we make money off of you clicking a picture we post is not accurate. We make money when you read the story from our website. On this story we have turned off advertising so no ads will show up on it and we will not make anything off anyone who clicks that story. Since it was up for a couple of days with advertising I’ve made a donation to Paws Rescue for roughly ten times the amount advertising will generate from that story.

Say what you will about Keith and his choice to do the story. I know Keith as a hardworking person who is loved by almost everyone except a random coach or athletic director. If you don’t want to go to the show, don’t.