FBI joins search for 4-year-old boy who disappeared from grandmother's porch in Baltimore

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Baltimore Police Department(BALTIMORE) —  The desperate search for a missing 4-year-old in Baltimore expanded to include the FBI on Friday, one day after the boy disappeared from his grandmother’s porch.

Malachi Lawson was last seen at his grandmother’s house on Thursday on the 4500 block of Rogers Avenue in northwest Baltimore. He was with his mother when the boy wandered off the porch, but police said they were still investigating exactly how he managed to go missing.

The FBI joined local agencies searching for the boy on Friday.

“We are utilizing all of the resources that are available to us, through all state and federal and local law enforcement organizations,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said at a press conference Friday evening. “We’re leveraging all of those resources and relationships to try to locate Malachi and bring him home.”

Lawson was last seen wearing a white tank top, khaki shorts and black flip flops. The boy also walks with a limp due a broken leg when he was an infant, police said.

“It is very important that we get any information and as much information as we can possibly get to ensure that we locate Malachi and return him home to his family, and we’re asking for the community’s help, however slight information,” Harrison said.

Authorities said his mother “did not wait very long at all” to report him missing.

Police said they have not come up with any leads, but were using bloodhounds to search the area, which is near the Arlington Cemetery of Chizuk.

An Amber Alert was not issued because “it did not meet all of the criteria protocols,” Harrison said, but he encouraged people to take the warning just as seriously.

Police said they are looking at public and private surveillance video in the area of the boy’s disappearance, and encourage anyone in the area to share video.

About 100 volunteers, many from the Baltimore Shomrim Safety Patrol, joined the search for Lawson on Friday morning.

“A lot of us are fathers. A lot of us are grandfathers and you have a 4-year-old child missing, defenseless. It struck a nerve,” said Heshie Klein, vice president of Operations for the Shomrim Safety Patrol, told Baltimore ABC affiliate WMAR.

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