The Secret Service was forced to apologize after breaking into a salon owner’s business in Massachusetts on July 27 during a nearby fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Agents were caught by a Ring security device approaching the front door of the Berkshire, Massachusetts salon and then placing tape over the camera.
Alicia Powers, the salon owner, said agents picked the lock on her building for two hours before letting several people use her bathroom.
Powers said a Secret Service representative from Boston’s field office apologized after being contacted by Business Insider.
“He said to me everything that was done was done very wrong,” Powers told Business Insider.
“They were not supposed to tape my camera without permission. They were not supposed to enter the building without permission.”
The building’s landlord, Brian Smith, said the Secret Service did not seek his permission to enter or use the building.
“Me and my dad own the building, and I have a crazy eccentric guy that lives upstairs,” he said.
“And he didn’t tell the Secret Service they could use it, and I didn’t tell them, and my father didn’t tell them, and they had no permission to go in there whatsoever.”
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The U.S. Secret Service is apologizing to a Massachusetts salon owner after an agent covered her security camera with duct tape and broke into her salon by picking the lock so that its bathroom could be used by various people for a two-hour period.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 11, 2024
After the two-hour period,… pic.twitter.com/s4qSFtebn0
Powers said that she knew that she would have to close her business because Harris had arrived for her first campaign fundraiser since becoming the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.
She said that she would have been more than willing to allow the Secret Service to use her business if they had simply asked her.
“Whoever was visiting, whether it was a celebrity or not, I probably would’ve opened the door and made them coffee and brought in donuts to make it a great afternoon for them,” said Powers.
“But they didn’t even have the audacity to ask for permission. They just helped themselves.”
The Secret Service even left the salon unlocked after they had left.
“The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our partners in the business community to carry out our protective and investigative missions,’ Secret Service spokesperson Melissa McKenzie said.
“The Secret Service has since communicated with the affected business owner.”
“We hold these relationships in the highest regard, and our personnel would not enter, or instruct our partners to enter, a business without the owner’s permission,” she continued.
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