U.S. Secret Service agents taped over a security camera and broke into a Massachusetts salon in order to use the restroom ahead of a recent Kamala Harris fundraiser, the business’s owner has complained.
Alicia Powers, owner of Four One Three Salon in Pittsfield, told Business Insider that she closed her business for the day on July 27 at the request of the Secret Service due to it being behind the Colonial Theatre, the venue where Harris was speaking.
She said that agents had already been to her salon earlier that week to survey the area for security purposes, but did not expect them to return after she had already locked up the building.
“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,” Powers told the outlet. “And at that point, my team felt like it was a little bit chaotic, and we just made the decision to close for Saturday.”
Security camera footage shared by Powers shows the moment a Secret Service agent approached the salon’s door with a roll of tape and climbed on a chair to cover the lens:
A second video captured by another camera inside the shop shows multiple emergency medical and law enforcement personnel entering the salon, with one even appearing to take something small off of Powers’ desk.
Over the course of nearly two hours, multiple people were seen coming in without authorization from the business’s owner. The salon’s security alarm can be heard going off for the entire time in the background of the footage.
Powers said that the door appeared to have been picked when she returned to find the salon unlocked and tape still covering her camera.
“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,” she said.
“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.”
Later that day, Powers said that an EMS worker told her that the Secret Service agent in charge of securing the area “was telling people to come in and use the bathroom.”
Powers said she felt “violated” by the whole ordeal.
“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 told the outlet. “But they didn’t even have the audacity to ask for permission. They just helped themselves.”
Powers’ landlord, Brian Smith, also told Business Insider that the Secret Service “had no permission to go in there whatsoever.”
Secret Service spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said the agency has “since communicated” with Powers.
“The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our partners in the business community to carry out our protective and investigative missions,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to the outlet. “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 added.
On Thursday, over a week after the incident took place, the head of the Secret Service’s Boston field office called Powers to say sorry.
“He said to me everything that was done was done very wrong,” she said. “They were not supposed to tape my camera without permission. They were not supposed to enter the building without permission.”
The salon owner added that the person she spoke with offered to pay for the salon to be cleaned, cover that day’s alarm company bill, and to visit the shop and apologize in person.
Powers said she would take him up on it
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