The shear audacity.
The Secret Service apologized to a salon owner in Massachusetts who alleged that individuals broke into her business to use the bathroom during the agency’s security work for a nearby Veep Kamala Harris fundraiser.
Berkshires businesswoman Alicia Powers says someone picked the lock and broke into her store for the bathroom — after a Secret Service officer covered a camera outside her salon with tape.
The people who proceeded to use the bathroom included a pair in emergency medical uniforms, a person in camouflage law-enforcement gear and someone in a dark suit and white shirt similar to a Secret Service officer who guarded the door, Powers said, citing footage.
A Secret Service rep was adamant that agents would not break into buildings like that — but did not deny that an officer covered her camera with tape, an act that was captured by surveillance footage, and appeared to cop some sort of mea culpa in a statement.
“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,” Secret Service spokesperson Melissa McKenzie said.
Powers said the head of the Secret Service’s Boston-based field office called her to apologize, according to Business Insider.
“He said to me everything that was done was done very wrong,” Powers told the outlet. “They were not supposed to tape my camera without permission. They were not supposed to enter the building without permission.”
The shop owner, who owns Four One Three Salon in Pittsfield, said the incident took place July 27, before Harris’ first major in-person fundraiser since President Biden dropped out of the race, paving the way for the vice president to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
The salon is behind Colonial Theatre, where Harris’ event was held.
She said her salon was closed before the fundraiser because of all the security mayhem,
“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 told the outlet.
