Chud the Builder, a controversial livestreamer known for using racist language, has been arrested and charged in connection with a shooting outside a courthouse in Tennessee, officials said.
The 28-year-old streamer, whose real name is Dalton Eatherly, shot another person at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville on Wednesday around 1:20 p.m., District Attorney Robert J. Nash said in a statement. He described the victim as an “unknown male,” but he did not provide further details, including his race.
Eatherly built his following with “rage-bait” content, filming himself spewing derogatory and racist rhetoric at passersby in a bid to spark a reaction. In one video recorded in a market, he can be heard directly addressing a Black man with hostile rhetoric when a nearby clerk warns him about his language.
“America is free speech,” he responds.”Tell me I can’t say something again. This is (expletive) America.”
Police said Eatherly was also struck during the confrontation in Clarksville earlier this week. He apparently shot himself in the arm, Clarksville Now reported, citing Nash.
In a video posted on the website Pump.fun, Eatherly claimed to have fired his gun in self-defense, after the other man involved turned violent and began to hit him.
“Did I shoot myself or did it graze it?” Eatherly asks a paramedic tending to his wounds.
Nash did not say what triggered the gunfire nor what Chud was doing at the courthouse before the incident. He was scheduled earlier in the day to appear over a $3,300 debt he 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.
On Sunday, the internet personality was also arrested in Nashville, after he was accused of walking out on a restaurant bill and resisting arrest, according to court documents. He denied wrongdoing in a post on X.
Eatherly was being held at the Montgomery County jail on charges of attempted murder, employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
With News Wire Services