A Massachusetts salon owner is accusing federal agents of breaking into her business to use the bathroom during a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Alicia Powers, owner of Four One Three Salon, said people she did not know or give access to entered her business and used the restroom during Harris’s campaign stop. It is unclear which law enforcement agency is responsible, as the Secret Service often works with regional and local police. However, the local police department said it was not them.
“Violated, disrespected, and I’m just totally blown away that there wasn’t permission granted or even asked to go into the bathroom,” Powers told Spectrum News 1 Worcester.
Footage of the incident was caught on video, showing one of the agents covering up the camera, presumably with tape.
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.
After the two-hour period,… pic.twitter.com/s4qSFtebn0
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“Did I say that they were supposed to ask for permission? They were not supposed to tape it without my permission and really apologized up and down and did offer to do anything they could, with paying the alarm bill, having the salon cleaned, and just said that it’s not the way that Secret Service does things,” Powers said.
The agents were reportedly using the bathroom for over two hours and left Powers’s business unlocked at that time. Powers told Business Insider that if the agency had asked, she “probably would’ve opened the door and made them coffee and brought in donuts to make it a great afternoon for them.”
Harris’s event was held at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on July 27. The venue is next to Powers’s salon. While no federal agencies have claimed responsibility for the event, and it is unclear at this time exactly who is responsible for the incident, the Secret Service released a statement saying they spoke with Powers.
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“The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our partners in the business community to carry out our protective and investigative missions. 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 spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said in a statement Sunday.
Since the presumed break-in, the Secret Service has reportedly offered to pay for the alarm company bill for that day and to have Powers’s salon cleaned.