Neighborhood dog leads police right to missing 3-year-old boy

He had run up, rang the doorbell, and then ran right across the street, but he lives there. We received *** run on beat 6 in the 7th division of *** missing 3-year-old. OK. Any time you have *** kid that young, you know you’re you’re fearful. In that situation when there’s *** missing kid under the age of 11, if you’re not on *** run actively, everyone goes to it. Corps air unit up. They were up quick and they were over the area. We’re doing *** neighborhood canvass on the ground and it’s awesome because they’re doing *** canvass above us. We’re lucky in my division we have *** drone operator on our platoon, so he’s over there within 1012 minutes. He gets *** drone. I’m just gonna start walking. He’s gotta be close. He can’t run that fast. Me and another officer, Officer Story, uh, decided, hey, let’s get on foot. Let’s we’re gonna find this kid on foot. She’s got camera. Officer Story, who rides actually rides the beat that it occurred on, he said, Hey man, there’s *** run *** couple of hours ago of *** lady right next door to where the missing was from that called in about *** kid. It wasn’t the same description, but it was *** young kid hit her ring doorbell camera, ran off. I said, You know what, let’s just go back to the ring camera. So I hit the ring camera and I was able to talk to the, the lady that called the original run in 2 hours prior and I got to talk to her through the ring camera and uh just kind of get some cues on where, where, where this came out and went and she immediately said he’s across the street, he’s in the house across the street. So it was kind of funny. I originally I go to the front door, so I knock on the door. I hear no movement inside. I don’t hear TVs. I don’t see lights thinking it’s probably unoccupied, no one’s home. So I go around the corner on the sidewalk and I notice this house on the corner has *** privacy fence, but there’s *** gap for *** driveway, so I kind of look in the backyard for obvious things. There were *** couple of cars back there, just like *** garage, detached garage, the door open. There’s some spots where *** kid may be. As I’m walking to the front, the craziest thing happened. There’s *** dog starts walking with me, and at first you don’t know about dogs. You don’t know where the dog’s from, so I’m kind of being *** little leery of the dog. He’s barking, chirping at me *** little bit, and then continues to follow me back to the front porch. I begin to knock on the house again. Let’s go find him. Come on, let’s go. And then I make *** gesture on body cam. Uh, it was kind of funny, I guess. I’m *** dog guy, right? So I’m like, hey, let’s go find this kid. And the dog immediately spins, runs off the front porch, and is leading me back to the backyard of this house. What? Show me. Let’s go. And uh it led me all the way back to the backyard. At that point I’m thinking, OK, this kid’s in this backyard. That’s what got me there. I get on the radio, just get more cars there because like we have officers all over the neighborhood. I noticed the back door was open and again me, where would *** 3 year old kid when it’s *** little cold go inside me and Officer Story exited the home at the rear door. Dog came to the front porch and as we’re exiting the dog ran right back to the car. Officer Story followed the dog. I went around to check the garage, the open garage right there. And then the next thing I heard Officer Ste yell, I got him. So we went over. It was in an SUV in the backyard. The kid was in the front passenger seat terrified. Hit the button right there below it right there. The dad mode turns on and I’m trying to get this kid to hit the unlock button. He hit the door latch and I just gave him the yank motion and he yanked and I pulled that door open quickly and I don’t think I’ve ever seen *** happier kid in my life. He jumped out of the car, bear hugged my neck, and wouldn’t let go. Good job, buddy. Lassie, Lassie, man, yeah, for real, watch out, Lassie found it. If I’d have followed the dog all the way there, the dog went right to where the kid was. The dog went right to the back bumper just like our dogs do, uh, what police dogs do. Go to the back bumper and just sat there and you know, now that I look back at it, I’m thinking the dog was sitting there saying, Hey, over here, man, come over here, follow me, and that dog was sent from somewhere else, man. I’ve never seen *** dog before. I’ve not seen it since in the neighborhood. I patrolled the neighborhood for 2 years. Uh, and I don’t know where the dog came from, uh, but it was *** blessing from God that day.