CHUD The Builder SHOOTS a Man: Was It Self-Defense?

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]All right, guys. Dalton Etherly, better known as Chug the Builder, has been charged with attempted murder and multiple other charges in Tennessee.

[00:00:08]Now, if you don't know who Chug the Builder is, he's a guy who's an internet influencer or live streamer who is known for going around the streets in Nashville and Clarksville, Tennessee and insulting black people with racial slurs, particularly the N-word, and he uses it with the quote hard R. This really causes a lot of problems, it gets people very upset, and he claims to be doing it all in the name of free speech as a free speech warrior advocate. Now, if you've seen some of these videos, you would think that this guy would either end up getting shot or shooting somebody else. Well, now both have happened. He managed to shoot a man at a courthouse today and also shoot himself in the process. Now, he's claiming that this was self-defense, but before we get into that, I want to show you a clip of Etherly at a gas station so you can get an idea for what he was doing. Take a look.

[00:00:58]>> going to do if your mommy got him pulling his dick out?

[00:01:01]What you going to do if your mommy got him pulling his dick walk up on me.

[00:01:04]>> Hey, I think you got room now.

[00:01:07]I need to get a Monster.

[00:01:13]What are you talking about?

[00:01:17]You own this place? I do.

[00:01:20]Hey, don't don't walk up on me like that. Don't walk up on me Get away from >> Y'all ain't going to do nothing but chimp out. Trying to say I can't come in the store. Look at these dumb ass chipping out. You What y'all going to do if I walk in the store?

[00:01:33]What y'all going to do if I walk in the store?

[00:01:37]got him pulling his dick out. What you going to do if your mommy got him pulling his dick walk up on me. Yeah, my dick my dick.

[00:01:43]>> Yeah, yeah, you big dumb ass. Yeah, yeah, you dumb ass cracker net.

[00:01:47]>> You don't scare me.

[00:01:50]What are you 7'3"?

[00:01:53]6'9". How you know why black guys are so tall?

[00:01:56]Cuz they're negro.

[00:01:58]Ah, cuz they're negros.

[00:02:02]Ah, that's funny.

[00:02:04]The liberal girls don't like it though.

[00:02:08]So as you can see those type of situations can escalate really quickly and it's amazing that this has gone on for years with nothing like this happening, but now as I said somebody got shot. Then you also saw at the end of that clip where he just approaches a random black guy on the street and makes a racial joke about his height and then he says that those white liberal women don't like it, but he does this kind of stuff for hours every single day. And this isn't his first run-in with the law. He's been arrested multiple times.

[00:02:36]He actually just got arrested within the last week for not paying a $400 bill at a restaurant in Nashville. And apparently the shooting happened at a courthouse because Etherly was getting sued for over $3,000 in credit card debt and that's why he was there. And then what happens is that he was approached by a man who he said started to confront him and talk trash to him and then the situation escalated where the man started hitting him and that is when Dalton Etherly claims he shot this man in self-defense. I walked past him he was sitting on the corner.

[00:03:10]I walked up to him cuz they were they were pointing at me. Uh-huh. They were laughing they were pointing at me and I said, "What's up guys? How are y'all doing?"

[00:03:16]I said, "Y'all like the Do y'all like the new suit?"

[00:03:19]He said, "Walk away from me." I walked away from him.

[00:03:21]He came back up to me.

[00:03:23]He literally said, "I have PTSD. I feel like I'm in He said, "You start saying all that chimp out [ __ ] to me I'mma hit you." He hit me.

[00:03:31]Started wailing on me even after I had to defend myself by shooting him. He was still wailing on me.

[00:03:38]Okay, so from Etherly's version of the events, he actually says that these people were like laughing and pointing at him so he approached them first and then when they told him to walk away he did and then the man came back up to him, told him he had some sort of PTSD, and then started attacking him. Now, we actually have some video footage of the end of this altercation, and as you could hear what he said there, that even after he shot the man, the man still kept attacking him, and we pick up there where the man is attacking him again after this guy has already been shot.

[00:04:10]Take a look. Oh my god. Oh my god.

[00:04:18]No.

[00:04:20]Holy [ __ ] >> They're out here. What the [ __ ] Somebody got shot. I think someone did.

[00:04:25]Yeah.

[00:04:26]Oh my god.

[00:04:32]I think it's the [ __ ] courthouse.

[00:04:34]Yeah.

[00:04:35]In between. They got him. Oh my god.

[00:04:39]Okay, now if you watch that back, it appears that Dalton Etherly, or Chug the Builder, was on top of the man and going to the ground with him, and then ultimately you see that guy laying there not really moving. They thought he was dead, but he is not dead. He's in stable condition apparently at a local hospital. But, it would look like Etherly was the aggressor there, at least had control of the situation. But again, this is at the end after he had already been shot, so he didn't shoot the guy in front of all these police.

[00:05:06]They were responding after the gunshot had already been fired and the altercation was still going on. Now, less than 1 week before this shooting took place, Chug the Builder wrote on X.

[00:05:17]He said, "Series finale is dead chimp on the pavement, and you monkeys riding when I walk free. Stay tuned." And then he replied to his own post by saying, "I will defend my life with lethal force.

[00:05:30]Do not approach me with intent to threaten bodily harm." And many people are writing online right now saying this was just Chug the Builder showing his true intentions, that he wanted to kill a black person and try to make it look like self-defense. And you see him there referring to black people as chimps, dead on the pavement, calling them monkeys. So, clearly, even in this post he was trying to provoke people, but now we have to look at the laws in Tennessee and look at what Chuck the Builder or Dalton Etherly is actually facing here.

[00:06:01]Now, I'm going to focus on the biggest charge, which was attempted murder. And in order for him to get charged with attempted murder and get convicted, they need to show that this wasn't self-defense. But the burden in this case actually falls onto Dalton Etherly's attorneys because self-defense is an affirmative defense, which means you have to prove that it was self-defense. They don't have to disprove it. And also what's notable is that in Tennessee, it is a stand your ground state, which means if you find yourself in a dangerous situation where your life could be threatened, you don't have to back down and run, try to retreat and get out of the situation, but you're allowed to stand your ground and meet force with force. Now, as an attorney, I'm going to go through that Tennessee statute for their stand your ground law and see how that fits with the case before us. So, the law reads, "A person who is not engaged in conduct that would constitute a felony or a class A misdemeanor and is in a place where the person has a right to be, has no duty to retreat before threatening or using force intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily injury if But let's just go over that part. So, basically, Dalton Etherly had to be in a place where he had a right to be.

[00:07:15]Obviously, he was at the courthouse and he had to be there for court, so he definitely meets that threshold. Then the next part would be, was he doing something that would constitute a felony or a misdemeanor? Now, that is to be determined, but at this point it doesn't look like he was. We don't know what he said to this man or did to this man.

[00:07:33]Obviously, that's going to happen in court, but what we know right now is that he wasn't committing a felony or a misdemeanor at the time. So, now under A, it reads the person has a reasonable belief that there is an imminent danger of death, serious bodily injury, or grave sexual abuse. Now, obviously if this guy said to him that he has PTSD and he knew who Chub the Builder was, then it would be reasonable for him to think that this guy would want to seriously hurt him. And then once the guy starts punching him, probably knowing that Dalton Atherly was carrying a gun and he still continues to punch him, then it would be reasonable for him to believe that this guy wanted to seriously injure him. Now, under B, it says the danger creating the belief of imminent death, serious bodily injury, or grave sexual abuse is real or honestly believed to be real at the time. And again, if the guy is hitting him, then it is real and you can see why he would believe that it's real, that he could be facing serious bodily injury.

[00:08:36]And then lastly, it says C, the belief of danger is founded upon reasonable grounds. Now, obviously again, they're just throwing back in the reasonableness. And here, if you're at a courthouse and minding your own business and somebody starts punching you, um you're reasonable to assume that they want to do serious bodily injury to you.

[00:08:56]So, based on the facts that we know right now, it looks like Dalton Atherly would be able to use force under the stand your ground law and it would be justified. But, there is a caveat here that a lot of people who don't like Chub the Builder have been writing online saying, "Wait a minute, you can't use the stand your ground law to use deadly force against somebody if you were the one that provoked this incident." Let's take a look at that. Under E, it says the threat or use of force against another is not justified if under one, if the person using force consented to the exact force used or attempted by the other individual. While there's no evidence that anybody consented to this, but two, it says if the person using force provoked the other individual's use or attempted use of unlawful force.

[00:09:48]So, in this case, if Chug the Builder provoked that man, then he would not have a right to use this force against him. But, it says unless, even if he did provoke him, the person using force abandons the encounter or clearly communicates to the other the intent to do so, and the other person nevertheless continues or attempts to use unlawful force against that person. So, there are two questions that we need to answer.

[00:10:15]Did Dalton Etherly or Chug the Builder provoke this man into attacking him?

[00:10:20]Now, there are multiple cases that say just using insults, even if it was the N-word or other offensive words, shouldn't be enough to be considered provoking somebody to prevent you to use deadly force against them if they're attacking you. And even if he did provoke him, if he wanted to get away from the situation like he said that he walked away from him, now it resets and basically he regains his right to stand his ground. So, if he provoked the guy, then the guy said, "Hey, get away from me." and he walked away from him, and then he was attacked, which is what he's saying happened here, then he would still be justified to use force against this guy. Now, obviously we don't have all the facts, but under the facts that we have right now, if we take Dalton Etherly's version of events here, then it looks like he would be entitled to use self-defense under Tennessee's stand your ground law to beat an attempted murder charge here. But, they will also be able to go back and look at past statements that he's posted online where he's talking about leaving people dead on the pavement where they could make an argument, which they're going to do, that this was attempted murder because he was just looking for this. But, this case is really interesting because even if you disagree with somebody's language, and I for one don't believe in hate speech laws, I think you should be allowed to say whatever you want, but free speech doesn't mean there aren't any consequences. If you insult a guy's wife in a bar, you might get punched in the face. And likewise, if you go up to people of different races on the street, and you hurl racial insults at them, you might get punched in the face. So, he knew that he was saying things to people that could get them riled up, and that would be a consequence. But, that doesn't mean that he loses a right to defend himself. If that guy in the bar punches you for saying something about his wife, it doesn't mean you're not allowed to fight back because you were the one who made an insult first. That's not how the law works. So, I'm going to be watching this case really closely.

[00:12:18]I'm sure the whole country is. It's really blowing up right now. But guys, do me a favor. If you like this video, hit that like button, share this video with your friends, subscribe to this channel, and stay tuned for more.

[00:12:31]Thanks, guys.