A Missouri lawmaker is under criminal investigation after texting the state’s 988 suicide hotline that she had a gun to her head in what she called a test of a flawed system.
State Rep. Tricia Byrnes, a Wentzville Republican, told The Star she sent the series of texts to the hotline last week while she pursues legislation to change how the system responds to people in crisis. She wanted to expose the cold, automated responses people receive, she said.
But the nature of the text messages prompted a flurry of calls from Jefferson City and St. Louis police and have sparked an ongoing investigation by Missouri Capitol police, who met with Byrnes at the state Capitol on Thursday.
Capitol police have released little about the investigation. But an incident report from the Jefferson City Police Department said that law enforcement used “a lot of resources” to respond to her texts, “which turned out to only be a false report for her experiment.”
The national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is used in states, such as Missouri, for people experiencing mental health, substance use and suicide crises.
Byrnes provided The Star with copies of the text messages she sent to the hotline. In her first message, sent just after 10 a.m. on Thursday, she wrote: “I’m really sad and have no hope to live.”
In response to the message, Byrnes received a series of automated prompts, including a link to a survey. After responding to those messages, Byrnes sent a follow up: “I have a gun to my head.”
In another text, Byrnes wrote, “I’m suicidal with a gun to my head.”
The incident log obtained by The Star shows that Jefferson City police received a report from St. Louis police at 11:12 a.m. about a 988 crisis line tip. Police pinged the texter’s phone, which showed that the text came from the north side of the state Capitol building.
Dispatchers were able to get Byrnes on the phone. In the call, she told police she was doing a test of the dependability of the 988 system, according to the log.
In another call, an operator told Byrnes that law enforcement had “a lot of resources working on this and that this was concerning.” Byrnes, according to the log, apologized.
At 11:41 a.m., an officer with Jefferson City police spoke with Byrnes who, according to the log, “stated she was proving how ineffective the 988 system is.”
“I corrected her on what notifications occurred and the amount of resources that responded to this which turned out to only be a false report for her experiment,” the officer wrote.
The log shows that Jefferson City turned the investigation over to Capitol police at 11:55 a.m. Thursday.
In an interview with The Star, Byrnes defended the text messages while also confirming that she was under investigation.
She said she sent the texts in the state Capitol building while meeting with representatives from Compass Health Network, which operates behavioral crisis centers in the state. A Compass employee did not immediately respond to an email on Tuesday.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Byrnes said. “I was testing 988 under the guidance of 988.”
Byrnes’ legislation would require crisis counselors to ask a set of questions at the start of every 988 text or call. The goal, according to Byrnes, is to ensure human responses instead of automated scripts.
Byrnes said she filed the bill after a personal experience with the hotline. She said she texted 988 in December after she and her husband witnessed someone they thought was having a mental health crisis. While she didn’t provide additional details, she said the responses she received were automated and not helpful.
After her interview with The Star, the Missouri House put out a release from Byrnes Monday evening in which she touted her legislation to change the hotline. The release made no mention of the investigation or law enforcement response.
Instead, she said her “firsthand test exposed alarming deficiencies in the system.” What she found was “nothing short of a catastrophic failure,” she said.
“The responses I received were cold, robotic, and appeared to come from AI chatbots rather than trained crisis counselors,” she said. “This is unacceptable. If someone in immediate distress were to reach out expecting real help, they might not get it—and that could cost lives.”
Editor’s note: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
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