What to know about a Tennessee man known for making racist videos now charged with attempted murder

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man who goes by the moniker Chud the Builder and is known for posting racist videos is charged with attempted murder after shooting a man outside a Clarksville courthouse on Wednesday.

Dalton Eatherly, who is white, posts videos to social media where he tries to provoke Black passersby by using racial slurs and racist dog whistles. He was arrested on Wednesday after an altercation with another man. This is what we know.

At about 1:20 p.m. on Wednesday, police responded to a report of shots fired outside the Montgomery County Courthouse. Deputies detained two people who were involved in a “physical altercation that escalated to gunfire," according to a news release from the sheriff's office. Both people sustained gunshot wounds and were taken to separate hospitals where they were both listed as being stable.

District Attorney General Robert Nash, in a separate news release, identified one of the people involved as Eatherly. Authorities declined to answer questions about the second man; however, a witness who said she saw him loaded into an ambulance described him as Black.

Neither Nash nor the sheriff's office have said what exactly led to the confrontation. It was not immediately clear if Eatherly has an attorney in the case who could speak for him. The courthouse was closed on Thursday because of the shooting, and online records were not updated. An attorney representing Eatherly in a different case did not return a call seeking comment.

In an audio stream from just after the shooting that Eatherly posted to social media, Eatherly says he shot a man in self-defense after the person started hitting him. Eatherly speaks with paramedics in the clip, one of whom takes note of a bullet wound’s entry and exit point in his arm.

“Did I shoot myself or did it graze it?” Eatherly asks.

After leaving the hospital on Wednesday, Eatherly was taken to the Montgomery County jail. He is charged with attempted murder, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.

Authorities on Thursday did not provide an update on the condition of the other man, and a hospital spokesperson said medical privacy laws prohibit them from disclosing information about victims of violence.

In an online fundraiser Eatherly posted for himself at some point prior to the shooting, he complains that he cannot get jobs for his contracting business because people object to the videos he makes. He claims to make “mild jokes” and admits that he uses racial slurs while calling it “harmless humor.” It is unclear when the fundraiser was first posted. He addresses it to “friends, supporters, and champions of free speech.”

Although Eatherly repeatedly references free speech in his social media posts, what he does in those posts may actually be crimes under Tennessee law, said David Raybin, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor who is an expert in the state's criminal law. Because Eatherly was known to openly carry a pistol while berating people, the combination could constitute assault, Raybin said.

“You don’t have to touch someone,” he said. Assault can be charged if you “create fear of imminent harm.”

Meanwhile, merely coming at someone with “fighting words” constitutes disorderly conduct under local Nashville ordinances.

Claire Martin works in a law office across the street from the courthouse and said she saw the aftermath of the shooting. She said Eatherly is well known in the community for yelling racial slurs at Black people while filming them. Eatherly also regularly does the same in downtown Nashville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the southeast.

Just the previous Saturday, Eatherly was kicked out of a Nashville steakhouse after he refused to stop livestreaming from inside the restaurant. An affidavit filed by police said he started yelling, screaming and “making racial statements” before leaving without paying a nearly $400 bill. He was arrested the following day and charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bond.

On the morning of the shooting, he had been scheduled to appear in court in Clarksville 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. The shooting occurred several hours later.

Eatherly was not listed in online court records as of Thursday afternoon, but if the case proceeds as ones normally do in Montgomery County, he will be arraigned on Friday. That is when a judge will decide on bond.

While police have not said what happened prior to the shooting, if Eatherly is found to have provoked the other person, it would be very difficult to prove self-defense, said Raybin, the criminal defense expert. Regardless, a person only has the right to use deadly force if threatened with death or great bodily harm.

“I think a prosecutor would give very little weight to claims of self-defense,” Raybin said.

Associated Press videojournalist Kristin M. Hall contributed from Clarksville, Tennessee. Associated Press writers Corey Williams in Detroit and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, also contributed.

A Sheriff's deputy investigates a shooting scene outside the Montgomery County Courthouse, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Clarksville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

This photo provided by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department shows Dalton Eatherly in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, May 10, 2026, after his arrest. (Metropolitan Nashville Police via AP)

Sheriff's deputies investigate a shooting scene outside the Montgomery County Courthouse, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Clarksville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Justice Department on Thursday accused Yale University of illegally considering race in admissions to its medical school — the second institution to face discrimination allegations by the federal agency this month.

In a letter to a lawyer for Yale, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said a DOJ investigation found that Black and Hispanic students have a much higher chance of admission to the medical school than white or Asian students, despite having lower grade-point averages and lower test scores.

“Yale has continued its race-based admissions program despite the Supreme Court and the public’s clear mandate for reform,” Dhillon said in a statement. “This Department will continue to shed light on these illegal practices, and demand that institutions of higher education comply with federal law.”

Yale officials and the attorney named in the DOJ letter, Peter Spivack, did not immediately return email messages seeking comment.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, his administration has been putting pressure on universities to stop using race as a basis for admission, which conservatives view as illegal discrimination. And a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2023 banned the use of affirmative action in college admissions, in cases involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

Last week, the Justice Department notified the University of California, Los Angeles, that its medical school illegally considered race in admissions.

In the letter to Yale, Dhillon alleged the New Haven, Connecticut, school was violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination and said the DOJ is seeking to enter into a voluntary resolution agreement with the university. She also noted in the letter that the agency has the authority to take the school to court to enforce Title VI if it cannot obtain compliance through voluntary means.

The DOJ cited differences in grade-point averages and standardized test scores as evidence of racial preferences in the incoming classes of 2023, 2024 and 2025. In Yale’s most recent class, Black students had a median GPA of 3.88 and a median MCAT score in the 95th percentile, compared to Asian students who had a median GPA of 3.98 and white students with a 3.97 median GPA. Both Asian and white students of that class had median MCAT scores in the 100th percentile.

“Based on our preliminary review of the applicant-level data, Yale’s use of race resulted in a Black applicant being as much as 29 times higher odds of getting an interview for admission than an equally strong Asian applicant with similar academic credentials,” Dhillon's letter said.

The Justice Department also described Yale’s use of a holistic admissions process as a means for the school to consider race.

The letter also cited Yale’s amicus brief in the Student for Fair Admissions lawsuit that led to the 2023 Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, where the school said it would not be able to maintain diverse classes without explicit consideration of race. The department said the fact that Yale was able to maintain similarly diverse classes despite that brief as evidence that the school had engaged in race discrimination.

Dhillon wrote that the lack of any change in Yale's admissions outcomes after the Supreme Court ruling showed "a willful failure to comply with that decision.”

In March, a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging a Trump administration policy that requires higher education institutions to collect data showing they aren’t considering race in admissions.

Associated Press writer Annie Ma in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - A woman walks by a Yale sign reflected in the rainwater on the Yale University campus in New Haven, Conn., Aug. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)