State troopers help young Hawkeye fan find dad

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Kristin Rogers, Multimedia Journalist – IOWA CITY (KWWL) - Iowa State Patrol officers were captured on camera Saturday helping a lost boy at the Hawkeye game.

Officers can be seen in the photo sitting next to the six-year-old as they worked to reunite him with his dad.

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Troopers Cody Reicks and Frank Burns say they were assigned to work the NW corner of Kinnick Stadium when they heard the boy was missing.

"We hadn't been there for maybe a minute and we heard the radio broadcast of a missing boy," says Reicks.

"The description was a young boy, six years old wearing a number six jersey," Burns told us.

It wasn't long before the two spotted little A.J. in the large crowd all alone.

"Frank looked up and pointed him out, said hey I think that's him and I said yeah, matches the description," Reicks says.

The two troopers quickly made their way to A.J.'s side.

"We sat down on the bench next to him, we were talking about the game, talking about Hawkeye football and where he was from and just kind of put him at ease he looked kind of tense at first," Burns says.

Matt Winchester, a Hawkeye fan sitting up behind the boy and the officers snapped a photo.

"I literally thought it was just the patrolman just socializing with people and I thought that was cool enough, took the picture because I thought it was pretty neat I wanted other people to see it," Winchester told us.

The boy was soon reunited with his dad.

"He gave him a big hug and obviously his dad was pretty relieved to find him," Burns said.

It's something that could have easily been missed by the thousands at the game, but the hard work of Trooper Burns and Trooper Reicks, reunited a father and a son missing each other.

"It's more cool now that I know what was really going on," Winchester says.

"There were a lot of people looking out for him and I think it was a very good effort by all the law enforcement," he added.

Iowa State Patrol is unsure of who the family is, but the troopers tell us it's just a nice feeling to reunite a child with their parents.

We are told there were also many local police officers who helped get the boy and his dad back together.

This whole incident happened just before kickoff, in time for the little boy and his dad to enjoy the Hawkeye game.