He walked into the courtroom wearing a Montgomery County Jail jumpsuit. Friday morning. The same courts complex where the shooting happened on Wednesday. The same building where Dalton Eatherly, 28, known online as Chud the Builder, had been scheduled to appear for a $3,300 credit card debt hearing earlier that morning.
He stood in front of General Session Court Judge H. Reid Poland III as the charges were read. Attempted criminal homicide. Employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. Aggravated assault. Reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors asked the judge to hold Eatherly without bond. He was already out on bond in two other open cases. A November harassment charge in Montgomery County. A theft and disorderly conduct charge from the week before, after he allegedly stiffed a $371 tab at a Nashville steakhouse and refused to pay.
Judge Poland declined the no-bond request. He set bond at $1.25 million, citing “how many people were in the courtyard and near the courthouse and the seriousness of this.”
Eatherly closed his eyes. He dropped his head. He looked defeated, like a man questioning his life choices. Then officers led him away.
Violent Thug ChudTheBuilder’s bond has been set at $1.25 million after being charged with attempted murder. Be warned he’s still very much dangerous and potentially violent. He’s liable to Chimp out at any time. pic.twitter.com/Qh4J2JWkEc
— DJ Akademiks (@Akademiks) May 15, 2026
The Builder Who Came to Court for a Credit Card Bill
The shooting happened at roughly 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13, in the courtyard outside the same building. According to the arrest warrant, Eatherly reached for his firearm before the physical altercation began.
His own livestream from the stretcher tells what came before. He says he walked past a group he claims was “laughing” and “pointing” at him. A man told him to walk away. Then the man said something else.
“I have PTSD.”
Then, by Eatherly’s own account, the man told him: “You start saying all that chimp out s**t to me and ‘imma hit you.”
Eatherly is white. The livestreams that built his following show him calling Black people “chimps” and pepper-spraying a Black man who knocked his hat off. He calls himself a free-speech patriot.
Chud the builder shooting video has been released
This is attempted murder not self defense pic.twitter.com/A0EkcQKlU7
— The Black Tucker Carlson Jr 🇺🇸 (@B1TuckerCarlson) May 14, 2026
Six days before the shooting, he posted on his X account: “Series finale is dead chimp on the pavement and you monkeys rioting when I walk free. Stay tuned.”
According to the arrest warrant, Eatherly fired multiple shots. The other man was hit several times. Eatherly took a bullet in his arm. District Attorney General Robert Nash said it appears he shot himself.
Joshua Luvv Fox Served Six Years
The man who said “I have PTSD” is Joshua Luvv Fox. He is 31. He served six years in the U.S. Army, from 2014 to 2020. He came home with a disability his family has not named publicly. He is Black. He has two children. His wife’s name is Ni.
He was shot in the stomach and the shoulder. Lifeflight airlifted him to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. He is in stable condition.
On Wednesday, his wife sat down to write a sentence she did not want to write. She opened the GoFundMe with it.
“It saddens me to come and ask for help.”
She set the goal at $25,000. By Friday the page had cleared $38,000. She wrote that the toll on her family would be “unimaginable,” and that she does not know how long she will need to be off work to care for her husband.
Two Fundraisers. One Hospital Bed. One Jail Cell.
Eatherly’s GiveSendGo page was not new. He set it up in November, asking supporters to help him because his contracting business was, in his words, “under attack” for what he described as “edgy, harmless humor.” He had been fired from a job for using racial slurs.
In the 24 hours after the attempted murder charge, the page took in more than $18,000 in a single Thursday morning. By Friday afternoon it had blown past its $100,000 goal. Individual donations span from $5 to $2,000. On X, Eatherly’s followers cheered the shooting, posting racial slurs and claiming the victim had likely died.
Joshua Luvv Fox’s medical fund has raised $38,000.
Chud the Builder’s defense fund has raised more than $130,000.
The Numbers Are Still Climbing
Eatherly’s full bond hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, May 21. His preliminary hearing is set for Monday, May 26. The court has appointed Jacob Fendley as his attorney. Fendley has not returned media requests for comment.
As Judge Poland was setting the bond at $1.25 million on Friday morning, the GiveSendGo donations were still arriving in five-dollar increments.
Joshua Luvv Fox is at Vanderbilt. The man who stiffed a steak dinner four days before allegedly shooting him is in a jail cell while his followers crowdfund his way out.
By the time you finish reading this, Eatherly will be outraising Joshua Luvv Fox, the man he allegedly shot, by more than three to one.
