Caleb McGillvray, known as Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchiker, appears in a YouTube screengrab from a video posted two weeks ago. He is currently serving a murder sentence in New Jersey.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday morning to defend Fresno County Sheriff Sgt. Jeff Stricker in a lawsuit filed by Caleb L. McGillvary, better known as Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker.

A 196-page, handwritten federal complaint was filed in California Central District Court on Feb. 15, 2023, after Netflix released a documentary about McGillvary on Dec. 13, 2022.

Defendants in the lawsuit include Netflix, Jimmy Kimmel Live, KMPH Fox News, Fresno music venue Fulton 55 and owner Tony Martin, as well as Stricker. Even Alex Aguirre, the KMPH cameraman who shot the news footage that went viral, was named in the suit after appearing in the documentary.

The documentary focuses on the events in Fresno in February 2013 that brought McGillvary to viral internet fame after his rallying cry of “smash, smash, smash” while defending a utility worker from an attack with a hatchet. Nicknamed Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker, he would go on to reach infamy with murder charges in New Jersey in 2013 that would lead to a 2019 conviction.

Stricker appeared in the Netflix documentary. McGillvray said in a video posted to YouTube two weeks ago that Stricker’s account of what happened was different in the Netflix documentary than in the trial that ultimately found attacker Jeff McBride insane at the time of the attacks.

Stricker is scheduled to appear in federal court in Los Angeles Friday for a hearing asking the complaint be dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction relating to the complaint’s process service.

Fulton 55 was named in the lawsuit because of a music concert McGillvary performed there in 2013. McGillvary said the venue’s management disparaged him to other venues, causing him lost opportunities.