ST. LOUIS – A Missouri state representative fears that texts sent to 988 suicide crisis lifeline are not going to a real person.
A hearing is set for Tuesday in Jefferson City, where one lawmaker plans to take up the concern. State Representative Tricia Byrnes said she is under criminal investigation for text messages that were sent to 988 inside the state capitol.
“I want to reiterate (that) I am under criminal investigation. I am a state representative. Because of the facts of this situation, I should be fine; it is a formality. I want nobody to copycat this,” Byrnes said.
She said HB 1148 is the result of the first time she messaged 988 back in December.
“I was in a situation in my district where I felt like my spouse and I were dealing with somebody we thought was having a mental break,” Byrnes said. “It’s kind of hard to have a conversation in front of the person that is on edge and you don’t want them to do any kind of harm to you.”
That interaction led her to look into 988’s text and chat features.
Byrnes said Thursday she met with 988 in her office at the capitol. Byrnes recounted seeing texts to 988 at the advisement of 988.
“Under the 988 contracts prompts, we tested 988 because our concern was the data I was given is not connected to 911,” Byrnes said. “Our goal is to see what words will trigger it to stop being an AI script and a real person would pick up the line. The 988 provider then says to me, ‘Wow, this is insane.’ It still hasn’t left AI.”
After a back-and-forth text exchange for more than 10 minutes, Byrnes said she got a text message that said, “Thank you for reaching out to 988 lifeline. My name is Sabrina. How may I support you today?”
“The 988 person that is looking over my shoulder is absolutely appalled, (and) says, ‘Go ahead and put in there that I have a gun to my head,’” Byrnes said.
Byrnes believed the chat was with a bot and not a real person.
“It just (was) not a natural conversation. At that point, we decide we’re done. We’re appalled that nobody has picked up regardless of these prompts,” Byrnes said.
An hour and a half later, law enforcement contacted Byrnes about the comments made in the text exchange.
“Should 988 texts have a prompt immediately that says ‘if you are in an emergency’ or ‘if you need immediate help,’ you need to call 911,” she said.
The Missouri Department of Mental Health said that 988 answered more than 1,800 texts and 1,200 chats last month.
The department also expressed that individuals should reach out to 988 by whichever form of communication: through call, text or chat.