CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A man who goes by “Chud the Builder” and livestreams himself saying racially derogatory statements to Black people in public settings was arrested and charged with attempted murder after a shooting outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, authorities said.
Dalton Eatherly, 28, and an unidentified man were involved in a confrontation that resulted in gunfire, District Attorney Robert J. Nash said in a statement. But Nash wouldn’t
say why Eatherly was at that courthouse in Clarksville, what he was doing or what prompted the confrontation.
Police didn’t provide the race of the other man. However, a witness who said she saw him loaded into an ambulance described him as Black.
Both men were transported to hospitals for medical treatment and were stable, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said.
Eatherly was being held at the Montgomery County jail until bond can be set at an arraignment hearing, the county sheriff’s office said. Eatherly was also charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff's office said.
Jacob Fendley, an attorney listed in court records as representing Eatherly in a separate harassment case from November, did not immediately return a phone message.
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. “He’s not a contributing member of society,” she said.
Martin did not see the altercation but saw the aftermath. The other man “waved at us as he got in the ambulance,” she said.
In a video posted on the website Pump.fun on Wednesday, Eatherly said he shot a man in self-defense after the person starting hitting him. Eatherly speaks with paramedics in the clip, one of whom takes note of a wound's entry and exit point.
“Did I shoot myself or did it graze it?” Eatherly asked.
Eatherly had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning in Clarksville, located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Nashville, over a $3,300 debt allegedly owed to a credit company, according to Montgomery County court records. The civil case was filed in February on behalf of Midland Credit Management.
Court records didn’t indicate whether Eatherly showed up for the status hearing. Online records list the case as open.
Eatherly, a white man, livestreams confrontations to social media where he can be seen and heard making racially derogatory statements to Black people in public.
In one video taken in a market, he says to a passing Black man, “You chimpin’ out," a reference to chimpanzees. He then uses the N-word a number of times.
The Black man is seen using a cellphone to record the confrontation, telling Eatherly, “Don’t touch me.”
A clerk tells Eatherly he’s not allowed to say that word. He responds “America is free speech. Tell me I can’t say something again. This is (expletive) America."
Racists in the United States and other countries historically have compared Black people to monkeys or apes. In February, President Donald Trump posted a racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle. It was deleted after both Republicans and Democrats criticized the video as offensive.
In addition to the credit debt case, Eatherly faces a separate criminal case in which he is accused of becoming unruly at a Nashville steakhouse on Saturday and refusing to pay the nearly $400 bill.
According to an affidavit in the case, the restaurant had asked him not to stream inside the business, but he did anyway. When they asked him to stop, he began yelling and screaming and “started making racial statements.”
He was arrested and charged on Sunday with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and released on $5,000 bond. His next appearance in this case was scheduled for July 17 in Davidson County criminal court.
Clarksville resident Larry Quillen said he's seen videos in which Eatherly carries a gun and mace “and goes around and starts things.”
“I was just kind of like it’s a matter of time. I mean, because what he’s doing is hate. It’s not even freedom of speech and that’s what he claims to do,” Quillen said.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said one of the two men involved in Wednesday's shooting was taken to Vanderbilt of Clarksville Hospital for treatment. A message left with the hospital wasn’t immediately returned.
The other was transported by Lifeflight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, the sheriff's office said. A spokesperson for the hospital, Craig Boerner, said medical privacy laws prohibited the disclosure of information about victims of violence.
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This story has been updated to correct that Clarksville is northwest of Nashville, not northeast.
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Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee, and McAvoy from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Corey Williams in Detroit and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.
