A man known online as “Chud the Builder” was taken into custody after gunfire outside a courthouse in Clarksville, Tennessee, and was charged with attempted murder, authorities said.
District Attorney Robert J. Nash said Dalton Eatherly, 28, and an unidentified man were involved in a confrontation that ended with shots fired on Wednesday outside the courthouse, where Eatherly has appeared online livestreaming racially derogatory statements to Black people in public settings. Nash said he would not disclose why Eatherly was at the courthouse, what he was doing there, or what prompted the confrontation.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said both men were transported to hospitals for medical treatment and were stable. The office said one of the two men was taken to Vanderbilt of Clarksville Hospital, and it said another was transported by Lifeflight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. A spokesperson for the hospital, Craig Boerner, said medical privacy laws prevented the disclosure of information about victims of violence.
Eatherly was being held at the Montgomery County jail until bond could be set at an arraignment hearing, the sheriff’s office said. In addition to attempted murder, the sheriff’s office said Eatherly was charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
A witness told authorities she saw the unidentified man loaded into an ambulance and described him as Black, but police did not provide the race of the other man. An attorney listed in court records as representing Eatherly in a separate harassment case from November, Jacob Fendley, did not immediately return a phone message.
In a video posted Wednesday on the website Pump.fun, Eatherly said he shot a man in self-defense after the person starting hitting him. In the clip, Eatherly speaks with paramedics, and one of them appears to note the wound’s entry and exit point, during which Eatherly asked, “Did I shoot myself or did it graze it?”
Court records show Eatherly had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning in Clarksville over a $3,300 debt that Montgomery County court records say he allegedly owed to a credit company. The civil case was filed in February on behalf of Midland Credit Management, though the records provided did not indicate whether Eatherly attended the status hearing; online records list the case as open.
The sheriff’s office said one of the men involved in Wednesday’s shooting was taken to Vanderbilt of Clarksville Hospital, while the other was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, with medical privacy laws cited for limits on disclosure. Claire Martin, who works in an attorney’s office across the street from the courthouse, said Eatherly is “well known in Clarksville for antagonizing people to see what he can get them to do.” She said he “yells racial slurs” at people while filming them, adding, “He’s not a contributing member of society.”
Martin said she did not see the altercation but saw the aftermath. She said the other man “waved at us as he got in the ambulance,” and that she only learned of the shooting as it unfolded near the courthouse.
Eatherly’s online videos have included remarks directed at Black people, including one in which he tells a passing Black man, “You chimpin’ out,” and then uses the N-word multiple times. In that market video, the Black man uses a cellphone to record the confrontation and tells Eatherly, “Don’t touch me,” while a clerk tells Eatherly he is not allowed to say that word; Eatherly responds, “America is free speech. Tell me I can’t say something again. This is (expletive) America.”
Eatherly also faces a separate criminal case tied to conduct at a Nashville steakhouse last weekend, according to court records. The records say that, in an affidavit in that case, the restaurant asked him not to stream inside and he did anyway; when they asked him to stop, he began yelling and “started making racial statements.” Eatherly was arrested on Sunday and charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and he was released on $5,000 bond, the records show, with his next scheduled appearance in that case set for July 17 in Davidson County criminal court.
Clarksville resident Larry Quillen said he has seen videos in which Eatherly carries a gun and mace and “goes around and starts things.” Quillen said he believed it was “a matter of time,” adding, “because what he’s doing is hate. It’s not even freedom of speech and that’s what he claims to do.”
This story was updated to correct that Clarksville is northwest of Nashville, not northeast.