Kreig had attempted to visit Shuler upon his arrival in Birmingham on Thursday afternoon. However, officials at the Jefferson County Jail told Kreig that Shuler "was not there" despite the fact that Shuler was shown to be an inmate at Jefferson County Jail per their website and calls to the facility prior to the attempted visit indicated he was indeed being detained there. It is anyone's guess as to why officials mislead Kreig regarding Shuler's whereabouts when he stopped by the Jefferson County Jail on March 6. Thankfully, however, Kreig was able to finally meet with Shuler on Monday in the jailed journalist's second only visit by a reporter since his arrest on Oct. 23.
Kreig, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Justice Integrity Project, has been covering the Legal Schnauzer first amendment case extensively since the investigative reporter's beating and unlawful arrest on Oct. 23. Following the jailhouse interview, Kreig wrote an articleabout his visit with Shuler which was published March 14.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
"Alabama commentator Roger Shuler's condition has sharply worsened during his nearly five months of jailing, as I learned by visiting him in Birmingham March 10.'It's a horrible trauma to be away from your wife, your home -- and have no idea when you can get out or how,' Shuler told me in a rare interview regarding his case, in which he is being held without bond in a civil case with no possibility foreseeable freedom unless he spikes his stories in apparent violation of Supreme Court protections for the public and the press.
He said he did not even know why he was being held in the Jefferson County facility after being jailed in nearby Shelby County nearly all of the four previous months. He was able to inform his wife of his locale only because a fellow prisoner released last weekend kindly contacted her. (As of March 12, he was back at Shelby County's jail following phone inquiries by his wife.)
'I've been treated fairly well by fellow prisoners,' Shuler told me. 'But some of them come in hyped up on drugs, and I've barely escaped some vicious fights, typically over some little thing like who gets to use a phone for a 15-minute call. Anybody can get killed, and I saw it happen.'"
Andrew Kreig also published his article on the OpEd News website. Here is the link to the article which appeared there March 16: Jailed Journalist Sends Shocking 'Letter from Birmingham Jail'
