The Secret Service can’t seem to avoid controversy these days, with agents now coming under fire for breaking into a salon and using its bathroom during a campaign stop for Kamala Harris in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
The owner of the salon, Alicia Powers, said that she was shocked when she discovered that Secret Service agents had caused her business’s alarm to go off for several hours. They were seen in security footage covering an outside security camera with tape before breaking into the business, which was closed at the time; Powers reported that the door lock appeared to be picked.
Other cameras in the business showed that agents let themselves inside to use the bathrooms and allowed EMS workers to come inside and use the restrooms as well. Those who entered the building were also observed helping themselves to mints from the salon’s countertop.
EMS workers she spoke to later said that an individual dressed in all black told them they could use the bathroom in the salon, which she says was left “disgustingly dirty.”
Powers said she would have gladly allowed them inside if they had asked. She closed the salon on the day of the event because of the chaos caused by multiple bomb sweeps in the run-up to the Harris event.
“I pay taxes, I’m on top of my stuff, it was just a violation. I was like ‘Wow, that can happen without permission,’ and that was kind of mind-blowing for me,” she said.
They also left the back door fully unlocked and failed to remove the tape from the camera, which put her business at risk of vandalism, theft and other problems.
She told the Berkshire Eagle: “They left the tape on my camera and they left my back door completely unlocked. What could have happened in that hour and a half or two hours that you guys left the building unlocked?”
A Secret Service spokesperson said that this is not standard operating procedure for the agency, noting: "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's reputation in tatters following Trump assassination attempt
The incident comes not even a month after an assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, placed heavy scrutiny on the Secret Service, whose multiple failures were largely responsible for what happened on that day.
An investigation revealed that local law enforcement officers noticed the 20-year-old shooter ahead of the assassination attempt and had identified him as suspicious at least an hour before the shooting took place but ultimately lost track of him. Their failure to act meant that he was able to make his way onto the roof of a nearby building and fire around eight shots into the crowd using an AR-15-style rifle. Trump's ear was grazed as a well-timed turn of his head spared him from being shot in the head, but a local man was killed and two other people were sent to the hospital with serious injuries.
Their failures were so significant that the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned following a slew of criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in a House Oversight Committee hearing in which she admitted their actions that day amounted to their biggest security failure in decades.
Sources for this article include:
Please contact us for more information.