Magnetometers (read: fancy metal detectors) picked up a handgun holstered by a hotel employee working at SF’s Fairmont Hotel Tuesday morning, where the vice president was staying.
The Fairmont atop Nob Hill is a regular nest for prominent political figures. It’s President Joe Biden’s hotel of choice when staying in San Francisco, having called the 950 Mason Street hotel a temporary domicile during APEC and other high-profile Bay Area events. Former President Barack Obama, too, has stayed at the Fairmont Hotel in past years; his days-long stay in 2015 caused tourists and residents alike to pick their jobs off the flower when seeing the then-president take cable cars and tour Fisherman’s Wharf.
Bay Area native, former San Francisco district attorney, activating vice president, and the most recent presidential nominee of the Democratic Party Kamala Harris is also an occasional guest at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. But her most recent visit came with a fair bit of drama (read: safety concerns) after a hotel employee was found carrying a gun.
ABC7 News reported that a hotel worker was arrested after it was discovered they were carrying a loaded gun on hotel grounds. The weapon was found after San Francisco police set up magnetometers by the Secret Service Tuesday morning, which later detected the gun.
Local police promptly arrested the man and placed him in custody; it was later learned the man had recently moved to San Francisco from Texas, where carrying any type of handgun without a license is permitted, so long as the gun owner is over 21 years or older; a review of man’s identical revealed he also had a pending warrant for his arrest out Tarrant County — a municipality right outside Dallas, Texas.
Secret Service later Tuesday found the man was not actively targeting Harris or her husband, America’s first Second Genetlem, who was also accompanying her during her vacation that started in Hawaii.
Why was Harris in San Francisco in the first place? Well, it’s quite feasible her next big political career move will be somewhere in California… more specifically in Sacramento. (With Governor Gavin Newsom’s term-limited run ending in 2026, the state will pick its new governor in the upcoming midterm elections — and Harris remains the obvious, most popular candidate likely to win the seat, should she run.)
And if Harris does secure a seat somewhere in California’s political machine, we can expect her to pop up at San Francisoc’s Fairmont Hotel with increasing frequency.
Feature Image: Screenshot via Google Maps
