A missing-child call that came into Prince George's County Police just after 5 p.m. on Tuesday set off a nearly three-hour search that ended with a bloodhound named Bo sniffing out a boy hidden in thick brush, just feet from the roar of traffic on MD-210. Officers found him safe, tired, and far from where he started.
The dispatch came in at approximately 5:04 p.m. on October 6, and patrol officers were on scene roughly 11 minutes later, according to The BayNet. In a video posted to Facebook, the Prince George's County Police Department described how patrol officers, Missing Persons Unit detectives, and the Special Operations Division's K9 Section all converged on the case, searching the boy's neighborhood, the areas behind houses, and heavily wooded terrain before the trail led them miles from home.
A Three-Mile Trail Through the Dark
The search eventually stretched across three miles of rough ground, and it took a specialized set of resources to close the gap: more than 20 officers, three K-9 teams, a missing persons detective, and the department's helicopter unit, the BayNet reports. Corporal Jason Carter and his 3-year-old bloodhound, Bo, worked the scent trail the whole way, and it was Carter who ultimately spotted the boy in the dark after hearing a faint sound coming from dense thorns, according to WUSA9.
The boy was found just feet from a busy roadway near MD-210, a stretch of highway that leaves little margin for error for a child on foot in the dark. Per the department's own account, the boy had wandered away from his home before the search began. Officers have not released the child's identity or detailed his medical condition, though they noted he has a disability and had traveled roughly half a mile to reach the brush where he was found, per the BayNet.
County Leaders Point to a Pattern of Rapid Response
Prince George's County Police Chief George Nader said the department had handled just under 1,000 missing persons cases so far this year, with roughly 95 percent of those people recovered safely, the station's report notes. Nader, a 32-year law enforcement veteran who previously served as Deputy Chief at PGPD and Assistant Chief of the Metro Transit Police, took over leadership of the department in June 2025, according to Prince George's County Government.
This was not the first time Carter's K-9 team and the department's aviation unit worked together on a dramatic nighttime find. In April 2025, PGPD K-9 officers including Carter, alongside the department's thermal-imaging helicopter known as Guardian, located an 8-year-old boy with autism in a lake in Upper Marlboro during a similar overnight operation, per the Prince George's County Police Department.
Tuesday's rapid mobilization was not optional under Maryland law. Under Maryland Code Family Law § 3-601 and § 9-402, police agencies statewide are prohibited from imposing any waiting period before accepting or acting on a missing person report, a rule Hoodline has previously reported underpins how quickly PGPD can deploy dozens of officers once a call comes in.
County Executive Calls Footage a Reminder of the Stakes
Prince George's County Executive Aisha Braveboy publicly commended the multi-agency response during a press conference where body-camera footage of the rescue was released, describing the footage as carrying real-life stakes, per the BayNet. The department's Missing Persons Unit, created within its Special Crimes Division in 2024 specifically to concentrate resources on juvenile and endangered adult cases, was central to coordinating Tuesday's search.
National figures suggest Tuesday's outcome, while harrowing, is not unusual. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported that approximately 90 percent of the 32,167 missing child cases it received nationwide in 2025 were resolved safely. Still, for a family watching a highway's edge close in on a missing child, the margin between statistic and tragedy came down to a bloodhound's nose and a faint sound in the thorns.
