'Injured' Chud the Builder faces attempted murder charge after shooting

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.

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.

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.