The US Secret Service had to apologize to the owner of a salon in Massachusetts after she used the bathroom in her building without permission last week ahead of a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Salon owner Alicia Powers says Secret Service agents covered her security cameras with tape and broke into her building by picking the lock, then allowed various people to use the salon’s restroom over a two-hour period.
Powers told Business Insider that she was aware of the closure of her salon but was not informed of the Secret Service’s other plans.
“They had a lot of people coming in and out again, clearing a few bombs – they completely understand what they need to do, given the nature of the situation,” Powers told Business Insider. “And at that point, my team felt like it was a little bit chaotic, and we just made the decision to close for Saturday.”
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Footage from the Ring security camera on the salon’s front door shows a Secret Service agent walking up to the door with a roll of tape and observing the locked door and camera. The agent then grabbed a nearby chair and stood on it to tape over the security camera.
“For about an hour and a half, there were several people in the house on and off – they were just using my bathroom, the alarms were going off, they were using my counter, without permission,” Powers told BI.
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“And then when they finished using the bathroom after two hours, they left and left my building completely unlocked and didn’t take the tape off the camera,” she added.
The Secret Service is under scrutiny for its handling of a local Massachusetts salon ahead of a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Powers told the news agency that a paramedic later told her that the Secret Service agent on security duty that day “told people to come in and use the bathroom.” The Secret Service told BI its agents “did not” use the building without permission, but acknowledged that an agent had taped over the camera.
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“Whoever was visiting, whether they were a celebrity or not, I probably would have opened the door and made them coffee and brought in doughnuts to give them a great afternoon,” Powers told BI. “But they didn’t even have the audacity to ask permission. They just helped themselves.”
The building’s landlord, Brian Smith, said no one gave Secret Service agents permission to use or even enter the building.
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“My dad and I own the building, and there’s a crazy, eccentric guy living upstairs,” Smith told BI. “And he didn’t tell the Secret Service they could use it, and I didn’t tell them, and my dad didn’t tell them, and they had no permission to go in there at all.”
Powers said a representative from the Secret Service’s Boston field office called her and apologized after BI contacted the agency about the incident.
“He told me that everything that was done was very wrong,” Powers told the outlet. “They should not have intercepted my camera without permission. They should not have entered the building without permission.”
