Use your imagination!
Of course if you do it to everyone, total gridlock ensues and nobody gets to the place where they would be killed. If you only do it to a few, maybe there will be a handful of killings before everyone learns not to trust a text ever again.
As an aside, I agree living in a country where people will take their guns around and try to solve things vigilante style instead of calling the police, is a very bad thing in general. In all first-world countries except one, and in almost all developing countries in the world, this is a solved problem.
An AI might be able to run this attack against the entire planet, all at once.
Try to think like a not-human, and give yourself the capacity of near-infinite scale. What could you do? Human systems are hilariously easy to disrupt and you don't need nukes to make that happen.
And exactly how does the AGI extort or persuade humans? What can it say to me that you can't say to me right now?