I sat on the couch decompressing from the day watching an old South Park when.......Bam, bam, I was up and across the room for my Maxpedition COLOSSUS which holds my Glock 20; Bam, bam, bam, bam. Michelle looks at me holding my bag. "did you hear something? What are you doing?" "Those were shots, close" I say as I peer outside. There is a halfway house for juvenile offenders across the street, but the place is quite at 9pm on a Tuesday night.

I relax, wondering what the chaos was that lead to seven shots being fired. Beep-beee, beep-beeee, beep-beeee. My Anchorage Police Search Team pager goes off. I check the text. Missing 11 YOA Asian. IC report to 7th and Muldoon. Well thats too far to be related to the shots, its going to be one of those nights.

I key my radio and call in to the incident commander, Chuck Springer. "Net Control, S56; I am only five minutes away, would you like me to respond?" It was not an "all page" yet, but I am a good early resource to have respond. IC confirms that he want me there quick, establish a staging area in the Thai restaurant parking lot brief everyone responding.

The search area is to be the trailer park across the street. The worst neighborhood in all of Anchorage by population. IC offers everyone the option to leave now due the danger of Knock and Talk at 11PM here. I am desginated team 2 leader. I brief all teams on how to approach the door and where to stand when its opened. Always stand on the hing side if it opens to the inside so you can see whats going on. Tonights teams will work a 2x2 cover formation by street. Each team of two will have one side of the street. At each trailer only one is to be close to the door, the other team mate will be 10 to 15 feet back. Only go to trailers with their light still on.

We slowly progress house by house. The weather was great, 33 degrees and raining. Everything was very slippery. Lt. Houneman calls me to see what I know about the shots fired by my house. I give him as good a location as I can and the number of shots I heard.

Surprisingly there was no threat of violence(or violence), I saw a shotgun and one resident had a shoulder holster with a Colt 1911. If I were answering the door in this park at this time of night I would be armed too.

It was closing in on 1 am and almost all the lights were out in the park, we had just about searched everywhere we could here. Culverts, sheds, you name it. The last place was a building wrapped in Tyvek with scaffolding all in front. On of the other team leaders cam up to me and said, "feel like a climb" and looked back at the 4 story building. I look at him for a minute gauging his seriousness. "Well do you"? Well, I am the Mountain Rescue guy. "Sure, just keep an eye on me in case I fall. That way you can call an ambulance quick."

Freezing rain, ice covering everything and water on top of that....super slick. I hop on. Ronny, a college student on our team make some worried girl noises as I climb up and look around and climb back down. It really was not too bad, and as I explain to the team, it's really important to remember only one thing when "free climbing".......Don't let go.

So it's 1 am and we are all getting ready to sign out and try to get some sleep when the office in charge lets us know the boy just walked in the front door of his house. Sheesh!

He was gone for 30 hours hanging out in an condemned building. Mom works nights and he was off to a friends house last time she saw him and he never made it to school the next day.