Online streamer Dalton Eatherly sat through a preliminary hearing in downtown Nashville Thursday morning for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and theft stemming from two separate incidents on Lower Broadway. In a hearing that lasted a little more than two hours, Judge Melissa Blackburn bound over the charges to a grand jury, continuing Eatherly’s multifaceted criminal saga in Middle Tennessee.
Eatherly — a racist provocateur who has built an online audience in the hundreds of thousands under the pseudonym “Chud the Builder” — also faces attempted murder charges in Montgomery County for the shooting of Joshua Fox outside a courthouse in Clarksville. Fox, a disabled Black veteran, survived the attack.
Officers escorted Eatherly — wearing a canary-yellow jumpsuit and handcuffs — into Blackburn’s courtroom on Thursday around 10 a.m. The charges focus on two separate downtown incidents in early May, days before the Clarksville shooting: an alleged dine-and-dash at Bob’s Steak & Chop House in the Omni Hotel, and a subsequent dustup when Metro Nashville Police Department officers arrested Eatherly on Lower Broadway. Both incidents were caught on video and previewed legal scrutiny of Eatherly’s racist provocation tactics. Blackburn also referenced being the victim of threats and intimidation from Eatherly supporters, who have raised more than $300,000 for his legal defense and have called for Blackburn’s removal from the bench.
Prosecutors called on the Omni Hotel’s assistant manager Chris Morrison to describe Eatherly’s behavior inside the hotel restaurant. Morrison recalled hotel staff making multiple requests for Eatherly, who entered the hotel lobby on May 9 and asked to be seated for dinner, to stop livestreaming. Eatherly resumed streaming midway through the dinner and began addressing employees with slurs based on race and physical appearance.
“I want to keep people safe and comfortable — I’m a hospitality professional and he was making my job difficult,” testified Morrison, who said multiple Omni staff members left the premises because of Eatherly’s behavior. “It was like he was trying to bait me into a confrontation.”
Morrison’s reflection crystallizes Eatherly’s political and philosophical crusade. His aggressive provocation tactics are a rallying cry for so-called “Free Speech Absolutists,” who maintain that all verbal communication should be legally protected, including offensive and hateful language. In practice, “Free Speech Absolutism” often functions as a veneer for verbal abuse meant to incite a violent reaction. Eatherly built an online following by livestreaming such stunts, specifically through publicly harassing Black people with racist slurs.
When Morrison finally kicked Eatherly out of the steakhouse, the streamer left behind a $317 bill — the basis of the restaurant’s theft claim. Jacob Fendley, Eatherly’s attorney, disputed the charge on cross-examination. Because Eatherly was kicked out before being presented with a bill, Fendley argued, the Omni can’t reasonably describe the incident as a dine-and-dash. Morrison conceded as much.
“He told me he was refusing to pay,” Morrison remembered. “And he needed to [leave] more than that money was worth.”
Later that night, after having been notified by the hotel, Metro police arrested Eatherly on Lower Broadway. Sgt. Arend Groeneweg, a 10-year MNPD veteran, testified that Eatherly responded violently to the arrest. A video corroborated the state’s charge for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Eatherly’s alleged violence escalated a few days later when he was arrested for shooting Fox outside a Clarksville courthouse. Investigators later found multiple firearms, body armor and an airline ticket to Istanbul in Eatherly’s possession. He will remain in custody and faces numerous upcoming court dates related to both ongoing criminal cases in Davidson County and Montgomery County.
