CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — A judge set bond at $1 million on Thursday for Dalton Eatherly, a white livestreamer known as “Chud the Builder,” who faces attempted murder and other charges in the shooting of a Black man outside the Montgomery County Courthouse earlier this month. Eatherly, 28, has raised over $100,000 for his legal defense on a crowdfunding site and has argued that his use of racist language, which drew a large online following, is protected by the First Amendment.
Eatherly is charged in the May 13 wounding of Joshua Fox, according to a criminal affidavit. The two men initially argued verbally, the affidavit says, and when Eatherly reached for a pistol in his jacket pocket a struggle began. Fox was shot multiple times and required emergency surgery.
In an audio stream apparently recorded by Eatherly just after the shooting and later posted online, he said he fired in self-defense. Eatherly’s attorney, Jacob Fendley, declined to comment on the charges when reached two days after the arrest, but asked that people stop harassing him and his staff. Fendley said that while he is defending Eatherly, he finds the online content objectionable.
Eatherly has built an audience by approaching strangers, using racial slurs and provocative antics while openly carrying a pistol. He has sometimes defended the slurs as “edgy, harmless humor” and, in statements posted on the crowdfunding site, described his videos as “mild jokes, unfiltered thoughts.”
But legal experts say the combination of threatening words and the visible display of a weapon could cross the line into criminal conduct. “You don’t have to touch someone,” said David Raybin, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. Assault can be charged in Tennessee, he explained, if a person “creates fear of imminent harm.” Eatherly’s repeated references to free speech do not shield that conduct, Raybin said.
Brandon Tucker, senior director of government affairs for the civil rights organization Color of Change, said “race-baiting” content creates immediate risk for Black bystanders. “The same free speech that this individual wants to advocate for doesn’t recognize the chilling of my response to know that I cannot react in any reasonable way because my face, my safety, my family’s safety is in jeopardy and being broadcast to an audience that most likely aligns with this person’s views,” Tucker said. He argued that streaming platforms cannot claim neutrality if they are financially rewarding users for agitating with racist language.
Even some other livestreamers say Eatherly goes too far. “When you get to terrorizing and doing all this hate speech, that’s when the line gets drawn, especially when nobody is bothering you,” said James Champion, a Los Angeles-based content creator who goes by the online moniker SendaRoni Sloscru. “Whatever platform is allowing him to get away with that is basically race-baiting.”
Eatherly streamed on Pump.fun, a platform where users create and trade cryptocurrency tokens. The site had paused its livestream feature in November 2024 after people violated its terms of service with abusive, obscene or dishonest content, but later reinstated it. Kate Ruane, director of the free expression program at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said it is unclear what safeguards were added before the feature returned. “If you’re relying on users to report and none of the users that are viewing these livestreams disagree or have a problem with what they’re seeing, you might not be getting the user reports that you should,” she said.
Ruane and Brandon Golob, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine, stressed that the First Amendment does not grant blanket immunity from state laws against harassment, hate crimes or provocation. “The reality is that when it involves two private individuals, state law is going to govern,” Golob said. “We just want to make sure that we’re not conflating government responsibility or government censorship with private accountability.”
The case drew attention Thursday when H. Reid Poland III, the judge presiding over Eatherly’s bond hearing, barred electronic devices from the courtroom and ordered several people removed, including conservative activist Jake Lang, who was led out in handcuffs. Eatherly’s crowdfunding campaign has drawn comparisons to a 2025 incident in which a white Minnesota woman who admitted to using a racist slur toward a child raised more than $800,000 and cited the First Amendment as a defense.
Civil rights advocates say the Eatherly case highlights a growing tension between the business of outrage content and the safety of the people it targets. Ruane advised anyone confronted by a livestreamer to exercise their own rights. “Make sure that you’re sharing a different version of the story because whatever First Amendment rights they might be exercising, you have them too,” she said. “Make sure that is being published at the same time and that can serve as a form of pushback in and of itself.”