In late July, Vice President Kamala Harris held a fundraising event in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in Berkshire County. The July 27 event is now in the news for the unforced public relations incident created by the agency, which is already being grilled and ridiculed for failing to protect former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
No assassination attempts occurred in Pittsfield, but Secret Service agents were engaged in what arguably was a breaking and entering incident. A local salon owner says agents left her place of business a mess, did not ask permission for entry, and it was all caught on camera for the most part; an agent was recorded putting duct tape over the security cameras. After they left, the salon owner says her storefront was a shambles and unlocked (via The Berkshire Eagle):
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.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 11, 2024
After the two-hour period,… pic.twitter.com/s4qSFtebn0
If the U.S. Secret Service had simply asked, Alicia Powers would have been happy to let its officers use her hair salon — across a parking lot from the back of the Colonial Theatre — as a comfort station the day of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Pittsfield.
“I'm the kind of person that would have set up coffee and doughnuts for them had they asked me for permission,” said Powers, the owner of Four One Three Salon at 54 Wendell Ave.
But they didn’t ask Powers, or her landlord, she said.
Instead, 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.
Powers said the Secret Service’s Boston office has apologized on behalf of the agency. She also said Pittsfield Police officers up to and including Chief Thomas Dawley have been helpful and supportive of her efforts to get accountability.
The person she spoke with at the Secret Service confirmed that the woman who taped over the Ring camera at about 8:12 a.m. July 27 was with the agency. She also said the agency offered to pay to have the salon cleaned and pay for any damages, and also pay for the business’ private alarm bill “because it was going off for so long.”
[…]
While the apology helped, Powers still feels violated, disrespected and a little angry.
“When they cleaned up and they left the tape on my camera and they left my back door completely unlocked," she said. "What could have happened in that hour and a half or two hours that you guys left the building unlocked?”
The agency is already under the microscope for the Trump rally, and now this unnecessary trashing of a salon in Massachusetts. When you’re being raked over the coals for failing to protect a former president, it’s best not to be part of or create any other situation that would make the agency look bad. It’s common sense. Well, the Secret Service managed to bungle that simple task two weeks after the Trump assassination attempt.
Will this agent be fired? Since no one got pink slips for failing to protect Trump, I doubt it. They broke into a law-abiding American's business and trashed it. What is going on with the Secret Service?
