Builder's Bad Day: Streamer Charged After Courthouse Shooting

When you’re live-streaming your own legal troubles, the tape doesn’t lie—even if your story might. Streamer Dalton Eatherly, known online as Chud the Builder, is facing a serious reckoning after a shooting outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Tennessee on Wednesday that left two men injured and prosecutors very unimpressed with his self-defense claim.

Eatherly was arrested and charged with criminal attempt: murder, employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault, and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, officers responded to a call of shots fired outside the courthouse after a fight between two men escalated into gunfire. Both men suffered bullet wounds—one was transported to a local hospital, the other treated at the scene, with both listed in stable condition. Here’s where it gets messy: Eatherly live-streamed the entire incident, claiming he was jumped and fired in self-defense, also insisting he accidentally shot himself in the chaos. The live-stream audience got front-row seats to what prosecutors apparently saw as something quite different.

This isn’t Eatherly’s first brush with the law lately. Just days before the courthouse shooting, he was arrested in Nashville for disorderly conduct and theft of services after a restaurant confrontation. Police say he got into a spat with customers who asked him to stop filming them, then walked out on a $371.55 bill without paying. It’s a pattern that suggests content creation has become less about building anything constructive and more about burning bridges in real time.

The charges stacked against Eatherly carry serious weight, especially the attempted murder charge. Live-streaming your own alleged crimes might seem like transparent documentation in the moment, but it typically just gives prosecutors a detailed play-by-play. His account of self-defense will now have to survive scrutiny from the Montgomery County District Attorney General’s Office, which clearly didn’t buy the narrative. What started as a streamer’s attempt to control the story has instead handed authorities exactly the evidence they needed.

For those following the streaming world, this is a cautionary reminder: the camera doesn’t edit, reframe, or forgive. And sometimes the worst defense is the one you broadcast live to thousands of people.