Adding to the U.S. Secret Service’s accountability issue, a salon owner offered video proof of the vice president’s detail breaking into her business to use as their restroom.
“He was telling me that it couldn’t have been them; it’s not what they do. They ask for permission.”
Days after becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris headed to Pittsfield, Massachusetts for her first fundraising event on July 27. It was that day, two weeks after a Secret Service failure had nearly cost former President Donald Trump his life, that business owner Alicia Powers said the agency had initially denied covering up their alleged forced entry into her Four One Three Salon.
“I’m the kind of person that would have set up coffee and doughnuts for them had they asked me for permission,” she told The Berkshire Eagle.
“Instead,” the outlet reported, “they taped over a security camera on the back porch, broke into the salon, helped themselves to the bathroom, ate the mints on the counter and left without tidying up the bathroom or locking the back door on the way out.”
Security footage from the business showed a woman in a dark suit nearing the front door carrying a roll of masking tape, as she spied the camera and then left only to return, climb onto a chair and conceal the view of the camera with the tape. Additional cameras showed people inside the business, helping themselves to candies in a dish and generally behaving as if they owned the place.
Powers had detailed that the Tuesday before the event, an advanced team had come through the area and made the request that her business, located behind the Colonial Theatre where Harris ultimately spoke, be closed the day of the event.
“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 Business Insider.
However, after her preplanned Cape Cod vacation was interrupted by the security alerts on Saturday, her effort to get answers from authorities was met with denials.
“From the communication I’ve heard from the EMS workers, somebody dressed in all black was telling them to come in and use the bathroom all afternoon,” Powers explained to the Eagle. When Pittsfield Police had confirmed none of their people had used the bathroom, she was put in contact with the New York Secret Service office.
“He was telling me that it couldn’t have been them; it’s not what they do. They ask for permission,” she recalled. “And he kind of ended the conversation with telling me, ‘Do you think we need to deal with this right now with what we have going on?’ And my response was, ‘Sir, I’m not trying to be rude but I don’t deserve to deal with this right now either.'”
Speaking on behalf of the Secret Service, already under scrutiny for lacking accountability over failing to stop an assassination attempt that came within centimeters of killing Trump while tragically taking the life of a supporter, spokesperson Melissa McKenzie had told iBerkshires in part, “The Secret Service has since communicated with the affect 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,” the statement continued.
Meanwhile, Powers informed the Eagle that after speaking with the Secret Service’s Boston office, the agency offered to pay to have the salon cleaned, pay for any damages and pay the alarm bill “because it was going off for so long.”
“I was happy with his apology. It’s a little bit of accountability. Again, I wasn’t looking to do anything,” she explained.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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