St. Louis Mayor Calls Text Message Release an 'Honest Mistake'

"I’ve never been one to hide my feelings," Tishaura Jones said in a statement

Jul 7, 2023 at 3:24 pm

RYAN KRULL

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones.

Mayor Tishaura Jones has issued a statement a day after a 135 page PDF of text messages between her, her father Virvus Jones and political advisor Richard Callow were released to the public as part of a public records request.

The messages, which ran from January to late May, showed the mayor and her confidants' candid thoughts on many of the issues of those months, including then-Alderman Brandon Bosley pulling a gun on a woman on Facebook live and Sheriff Vernon Betts getting caught on tape berating a deputy with racial slurs. The text messages also showed the mayor talking tough about her political opponents, including Ward 8 Alderwoman and former mayoral candidate Cara Spencer, who Jones said "doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing as chair of budget," and Ward 12 Alderwoman Sharon Tyus, who Jones hoped would "blow a gasket and pass out."

As the RFT wrote when we weighed in yesterday: "Politicians ... they're just like us!"

The messages were released as part of a records request submitted by the St. Louis Business Journal's Jacob Kirn, though the mayor's statement today indicates that was by error, calling the release an "honest mistake."

"I’ve never been one to hide my feelings," she said in the statement. "Through an honest mistake, text messages between my family and close friends were released to the public. Sometimes my words can be terse, and my text messages speak for themselves."

She added: "I understand the impact of some of my comments, and will contact the relevant parties to ensure productive dialogue moving forward."

Later in the day yesterday, the documents responsive to Kirn's request were no longer accessible via the city's Sunshine Request portal. Now, the documents related to the request from Kirn are available again, though the text message conversation released in error is no longer among them.