by Rod Hughes
The official mascot of the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ), is dead after 15 years of sniffing out wrongdoers.
Rock was a star, called in to investigate on more than 1,500 cases, a pure white Laborador retriever who was instrumental in May of 2001 in catching the disgruntled hunters who set fire to La Casona, one of the country’s most valued historical landmarks. He was interred with honors in a special place at OIJ’s Canine Unit grounds in Heredia. Indeed, he was the core of the modern Canine Unit, having been given to Costa Rica in 1994 as a gift from U.S. law enforcement officials.
Rock’s specialty was sniffing out hydrocarbon fuels used by arsonists, although he was also trained to detect narcotics. He investigated the fire site in Tilarán, for example, after a home for the aged burned, killing 17 residents in 2000. (He found no evidence of arson.)
He leaves a legacy, which one might call understandable nepotism–four offspring that have been incorporated into the Unit, which international experts call the most distinguished canine department in Latin America.
To underscore the difference between Costa Rican culture and a Latin America that generally lavishes little respect and affection for animals, one police official told the daily La Nación that he wept when Rock died quietly of causes related to old age.