Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022 | 8:09 p.m.
Lee Johnson
A Clark County Detention Center inmate who was pronounced dead Tuesday activated a call light twice before a corrections officer found him unresponsive in his cell, according to Metro Police records.
James Chatien was found inside his cell with apparent injuries to his head and body Tuesday afternoon and was transported to University Medical Center, where he died about an hour later, according to an arrest report.
Chatien’s cellmate, Lee Johnson, has been identified as the suspect in the slaying.
According to the arrest report, a corrections officer was completing a routine inspection when Johnson met him at his cell door and told him he would end up like “this” individual. The officer could not see Chatien and requested additional units, who helped to escort Johnson out of the cell and secure him. Chatien was located on the floor, with blood around his head, the report said.
In an interview with Metro homicide detectives, Johnson said “I don’t know” when asked who he had been housed with in his cell, and started shouting that “nothing matters anymore,” according to the report.
He told police he started hitting his cellmate and “tried to kill him” because Chatien “was running his mouth,” and he was tired of being disrespected. He said he used only his fists and hit his cellmate all over his body. Johnson did not have any visible injuries himself, according to the report.
When told that Chatien had died, Johnson said, “That’s what I wanted him to do,” according to the report.
Before he was found beaten, the call light in Chatien’s cell was activated at 1:47 p.m. It was deactivated by corrections officers a few minutes later. It was then reactivated at 1:53 p.m. A corrections officer did not discover Chatien unresponsive in his cell until a routine inspection more than 10 minutes later.
“Chatien had several documented behavioral incidents of misuse of his call light,” an official at the Clark County Detention Center told police, according to the arrest report.
Court records show Chatien was in custody for multiple counts of indecent exposure in the presence of children.
Johnson was initially in custody on two counts of battery on a protected person, according to court records. He was rebooked on one count of open murder Tuesday, police said.
