Volunteers and law enforcement officials continued searching Tuesday for a missing 2-year-old boy in Searcy, retracing their steps after efforts to find the toddler Sunday and Monday covered almost all of the 14.8-square-mile city.
Doug Baker, Searcy emergency management coordinator, said Tuesday that dozens of volunteers, along with the White County sheriff's office and Searcy police officers and firefighters, had searched "probably 99 percent" of the city for Malik Drummond.
The boy was reported missing at 6:30 p.m. Sunday after he reportedly wandered away from his home in the 700 block of West Park Avenue about 45 minutes earlier, according to police spokesman Cpl. Steve Hernandez.
A search dog team from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children joined efforts to find Malik on Tuesday, Baker said. It was the second team of search dogs brought in to help since the boy was reported missing.
Baker said about 150 people, not including law enforcement personnel, volunteered to search Tuesday. The same number volunteered the previous day.
"We're taking smaller groups and going through some of the same areas twice and mapping it out," said Baker, noting that searchers were going from door to door, checking backyards and empty buildings, and even looking in doghouses for the boy.
Police Chief Jeremy Clark said the FBI is assisting in the investigation.
No charges had been filed in the boy's disappearance. The boy's father and stepmother were cooperating with investigators, police said.
Malik is described as black, 3 feet tall and weighing 40 pounds. He has brown eyes and a light complexion and was last seen wearing a blue shirt and brown, striped pants.
Baker said Tuesday afternoon that searchers were becoming more concerned for Malik's well-being.
"Everybody's getting kind of anxious because of the fact that it's been so long and it was so cold last night," Baker said.
Metro on 11/26/2014