The Cook County Sheriff’s Office has a new hire. He makes his co-workers smile, snuggles up against their feet, likes salmon and is a pro at smelling electronic devices.
Boone, a 1-and-a-half year-old Labrador and golden retriever, is the office’s only electronic detection canine that helps investigators find devices like hard drives, cell phones and memory cards.
“If Boone hits on something, it’s not a matter of is something there. It’s just where it is,” Sgt. James Draz of the Cook County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit said as Boone dozes off during an interview.
Boone’s so good at smelling devices that he even found a cellphone under water during a training in a creek, according to Internet Crimes Against Children Investigator Daniel Codd, who is also Boone’s handler. And he couldn’t be fooled by the smell of food when they hid a phone inside a refrigerator.
Operation Underground Railroad, a group that says online it fights to end sex trafficking, donated Boone to the sheriff’s office. After a two-week training period in Indiana, Boone started Nov. 14.
In two months, Boone has already successfully found multiple devices on two Chicagoland searches, according to Kathy Carmody, the sheriff’s office’s director of public relations.
In one of the first searches, Boone let out a puff near a television stand, according to Codd. The puff is one of his signals that he smells something. And then he stares at Codd and remains still, a behavior that tells Codd an electronic device is near. He does this whenever he picks up the scent of triphenylphosphine oxide, a chemical that prevents devices from overheating.
Boone then went closer to the floor and led Codd to a micro SD card that had vital information on their case.
Working with Boone was like “learning to dance” with a partner, according to Codd, who has to interpret Boone’s behaviors.
“He either wants to go very fast to an odor that he detects right away, and I have to move along with him. Or he wants to be very particular and slow with it because he knows he wants to be right on the exact item,” Codd said. “If you wanna learn to dance with somebody, you wanna make sure your steps are correct. You wanna make sure you’re both in sync. And it’s kind of the same way with Boone and myself.”
“The nature of these crimes are, you know, sad to say they’re exponentially increasing so we are consistently overwhelmed with them,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. “And the devices themselves are the lynchpin for the whole case so [Boone]…has really changed the dynamics as far as our ability to prove these cases.”
In addition to his electronic detection duties, Boone is also an emotional support dog.
He has sat in on interviews with victims and was able to “bring the intensity down a little bit,” Codd said. And in the office, he brings up officer morale even when he’s just sleeping on his bed, Draz added.
The Chicago Sun-Times spent some time with Boone on a workday. Check out some photos here.
