Recently, the Secret Service has come under fire for taping over a security camera and breaking into a Massachusetts salon so they could use the restroom before a Kamala Harris fundraising event. Alicia Powers, owner of Four One Three Salon in Pittsfield, was outraged by the incident after she closed her business that day at the request of the presidential security agency.
According to Powers, agents had already visited her salon earlier in the week to prepare for the fundraiser and address potential security concerns. “They had a bunch of people in and out of here doing a couple of bomb sweeps again — totally understand what they have to do, due to the nature of the situation,” she said. “And at that point, my team felt like it was a little bit chaotic, and we just made the decision to close for Saturday.”
However, security footage captured multiple people entering the business without permission over the course of a couple of hours. “There were several people in and out for about an hour-and-a-half — just using my bathroom, the alarms going off, using my counter, with no permission,” the business owner explained. “And then when they were done using the bathroom for two hours, they left, and left my building completely unlocked, and did not take the tape off the camera.”
Powers noted that, if she had been asked beforehand, she would have been more than welcoming to the agents who barged into her business unannounced. “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,” she stated. “But they didn’t even have the audacity to ask for permission. They just helped themselves.”
Secret Service spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said the agency has since reached out to Powers regarding the incident. “The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our partners in the business community to carry out our protective and investigative missions,” the spokeswoman explained. “The Secret Service has since communicated with the affected business owner.”
McKenzie added that it is not protocol for agents to conduct themselves in a manner observed in this recent incident. “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. Powers noted that the agency has since apologized for the incident. “He said to me everything that was done was done very wrong,” she claimed. “They were not supposed to tape my camera without permission. They were not supposed to enter the building without permission.”
Footage of the incident was uploaded to X, with the caption,”Secret Service is batting a 1000 at this point. Secret Service agents taped over a security camera and broke into a Massachusetts hair salon while securing the area for a Kamala Harris campaign event, according to the salon’s owner. The intrusion happened on July 27, ahead of Vice President Harris’s first in-person fundraiser since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee.” “9thA Secret Service spokesperson told Business Insider that the agency’s employees “would not enter” without the permission of the business owner, but acknowledged an agent taped over the security camera lens.”
Watch the video below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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