A shooting outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Wednesday morning ended with both Dalton Eatherly, 28, and another man hospitalized, authorities said. Eatherly, who is known online as “Chud the Builder” for his livestreams in which he approaches Black strangers and makes racially derogatory comments, was charged with attempted murder, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
District Attorney Robert J. Nash said in a statement that Eatherly and an unidentified man were involved in a confrontation that led to gunfire, but he declined to say what prompted the encounter or why Eatherly was at the courthouse. Police did not disclose the race of the other man; however, a witness who saw him loaded into an ambulance described him as Black.
“He’s well known in Clarksville for antagonizing people to see what he can get them to do,” said Claire Martin, who works in an attorney’s office across the street. “He yells racial slurs at people while filming them. He’s not a contributing member of society.” Martin did not see the altercation but witnessed the aftermath and said the man waved as he was taken to the ambulance.
Eatherly posted a video on the platform Pump.fun after the shooting, saying he acted in self-defense after the man started hitting him. In the clip, he speaks with paramedics and asks, “Did I shoot myself or did it graze it?” The video shows a paramedic noting a wound’s entry and exit point.
Eatherly had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning in a civil case over a $3,300 debt owed to a credit company, according to court records. It was not clear if he attended the hearing. Court records list the case as still open.
Eatherly, who is white, has built a social media following by livestreaming confrontations in which he uses racial slurs against Black people. In one widely circulated video taken in a market, he calls a passing Black man “chimpin’ out,” a reference to chimpanzees, and uses the N-word several times. The man tells him, “Don’t touch me.” A store employee tells Eatherly that such language is not allowed; Eatherly responds by invoking free speech.
The comparisons to apes have a long history as a racist trope; in February, President Donald Trump posted a social media image depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife as primates, which was deleted after bipartisan criticism.
Eatherly faces a separate criminal charge in Nashville, where he was arrested Saturday after allegedly refusing to pay a nearly $400 bill at a steakhouse. According to an affidavit, the restaurant had asked him not to stream, but he did anyway. When asked to stop, he began yelling and screaming and “started making racial statements,” police said. He was charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, and later released on $5,000 bond.
Clarksville resident Larry Quillen said he had seen Eatherly’s videos and worried it was “a matter of time” before violence erupted. “What he’s doing is hate. It’s not even freedom of speech, and that’s what he claims to do,” Quillen said.
The sheriff’s office said one man was treated at a local hospital and the other was flown to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. A hospital spokesperson cited medical privacy laws in declining to provide details. Jacob Fendley, an attorney listed as representing Eatherly in a separate harassment case, did not immediately return a phone call.