A Massachusetts salon owner feels “violated” after the U.S. Secret Service raided her business during a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Footage from a Ring security camera shows an officer walking up to the front door of a business in Berkshire, Massachusetts, then capturing the camera footage.
Alicia Powers, the salon’s owner, said that after the camera was covered, officers forced entry into the building, then escorted multiple people out to the restroom over a two-hour period.
Now, as the Secret Service, which protects top US politicians after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, comes under increasing scrutiny, the agency has been forced to apologize for this much less significant blunder.
After Business Insider called the agency Powers says a representative from the Secret Service’s Boston office called to apologize for the bizarre affair.
Ring footage caught a Secret Service agent taping over a salon’s security camera before entering the business and making several people use the restroom for two hours during a nearby Kamala Harris fundraiser
The U.S. Secret Service is apologizing to a Massachusetts salon owner after an agent covered her security camera with duct tape and then entered her salon by forcing the lock, allowing the bathroom to be used by multiple people for two hours.
After the two hour period,… photo.twitter.com/s4qSFtebn0
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“He told me that everything that was done was done very wrong,” Powers told Insider. “They couldn’t record my camera without permission. They couldn’t enter the building without permission.”
Additionally, Brian Smith, the building’s landlord, confirmed that he never gave permission for Secret Service agents to use or enter the building.
“My dad and I own the building, and I have a crazy eccentric guy who lives upstairs,” Smith said. “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 didn’t have permission to go in there at all.”
Power said it became clear that she would have to be closed all day on Saturday, July 27, because Harris was coming there for her first campaign fundraiser after becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
But the owner of Four One Three Salon in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, said if she had been told the Secret Service needed to use her business’s facilities for security at the fundraiser, she would have opened her doors.
“Whoever was visiting, celebrity or not, I probably would have opened the door, made coffee and brought donuts and made it a great afternoon,” Powers said.
“But they didn’t even have the audacity to ask permission,” she added. “They just served themselves.”
Kamala Harris held her first campaign fundraiser in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on Saturday, July 27 (pictured), prompting nearby store owner Alicia Powers to close her business for the day
But Ring footage from her business’s porch showed an officer monitoring the door and camera before using a chair to grab the camera and tape it over.
Alicia Powers owns Four One Three Salon in Pittsfield, Massachusetts (pictured) — but neither she nor landlord Brian Smith gave Secret Service agents permission to use or enter the building
Just a few weeks ago, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as director of the Secret Service after Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last month.
The agency’s failure to detect and intervene in time prevented 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks from climbing onto a nearby roof and firing at the former president.
The bullet that grazed Trump’s ear was inches from his head. And other rallygoers weren’t so lucky, with one person dead and two others seriously wounded before the Secret Service neutralized the shooter.
Social media is in an uproar over the latest ‘violation’, calling the incident an ‘act of tyranny’.
“The salon owner should report this to the local SO or the police. The officers should be arrested for this,” wrote one X user.
Another said: “This is an inexcusable act of tyranny by the Secret Service, a horrific abuse of power that goes against every principle this country stands for.”
“For officers to break into a private business, bypass security, and treat a citizen’s property as if it were their personal playground is nothing short of criminal,” they added. “This is not just a violation; it is a disgusting display of arrogance, a contemptuous disregard for the rule of law, and an affront to the rights of every American.”
“Heads must roll here. Apologies are worthless. Accountability is non-negotiable. This atrocity demands immediate, serious consequences.”
The incident came just four days after Kimberly Cheatle resigned as director of the Secret Service following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
The Secret Service is under scrutiny after a gunman managed to shoot Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month.
Powers testified that a Secret Service agent entered her business by picking the lock and then used her facilities for at least two hours.
“We’ve had a number of people come in and out again, doing bomb disposal a couple of times. I totally understand what they have to do, given the nature of the situation,” Powers told Business Insider.
“At that point my team felt it was a bit chaotic, and we decided to close on Saturday.”
But what bothered her most was that the officers didn’t lock her shop when they left.
More than a week after the incident and a day after Business Insider asked the Secret Service for comment on the breach, the agency said it had contacted the company’s owner.
“The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our business partners to carry out our protective and investigative missions,” Secret Service spokesperson Melissa McKenzie responded. “The Secret Service has since communicated with the affected business owner.”
She continued: “We value these relationships and our staff would never enter a business, or direct our partners to do so, without the owner’s permission.”
When asked if USSS invited people to use the company’s facilities, McKenzie insisted that the agency’s employees would not welcome “anyone” into the salon without the owner’s permission.