2022 in review: Some of the biggest news in Dearborn, Dearborn … – Dearborn Press and Guide
It’s been a year filled with news in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.
As 2022 comes to a conclusion, we’re breaking the year down into quarters and profiling some of the most read and biggest news stories from both the Press & Guide print editions and pressandguide.com.
This is a look at news from Oct. 1 through Dec. 20, the day this story was compiled.
The top story of this quarter online was published July 20, and became the most popular story of the year. That was a story about an old police case from Dearborn Heights when Gregory Green killed his four children and tried to kill his wife.
While he’s still in prison, he was featured in a new documentary series this year.
A follow-up to that story was published last week chronicling a book that Green’s wife wrote about the ordeal.
Woman writes book about husband murdering their four children
Dearborn Heights woman writes book about husband murdering their four children
Faith Green released a book about the worst night of her life, just a few weeks after her ex-husband was featured in the docu-series for murdering their four children and trying to kill her, too.
Just one month shy of the sixth anniversary of the murders, the book “The Monster That Killed His Family Twice: The Faith Green Story” was released on Amazon.
The 118-page book details the night that Gregory Green murdered her four children. Gregory Green was featured in the ID Channel docuseries “Evil Lives Here” back in July. The episode title is “A Special Place in Hell” and is available to stream on Discovery+.
The incident and subsequent trial made national news. After the attack, Faith learned that her husband (now serving a life sentence) had killed his previous wife, who was pregnant at the time, but had been granted early release by the parole board.
The rest of our top stories were all fresh coverage of new events.
Elections were popular with our readers, with the top election-related story being an “anti” Proposition 3 opinion piece.
What they’re not telling you about Proposal 3
Dearborn resident Terry O’Connell wrote:
Michigan voters are being bombarded with ads promoting Proposal 3, the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative” (RFFI). Backers of Proposal 3 are telling voters they only want to reinstate “the rights recently stripped away by the overturning of Roe vs Wade.”
But that’s not the case. If Proposal 3 passes, Michigan’s abortion law is not going to simply return to where it was before Roe v Wade was overturned this summer. The amendment will immediately invalidate up to a dozen existing state laws related to abortion that Michiganders support. For instance, state laws now in place that ban partial-birth abortions and taxpayer funding for abortions, laws that require minimum health and safety standards for abortion clinics, and laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. The proposal also expands who can perform abortions so that any (undefined) “health care professional” can give abortions.
Readers, and voters in Dearborn and Michigan disagreed with him, as the proposal passed with almost 57% of the vote.
Crime stories also were popular, with our next several stories being crime- or police-related.
Dearborn Heights woman ticketed by Dearborn officer for parking in front of her own house
Dearborn Heights woman ticketed by Dearborn officer for parking in front of her own house
Dearborn Heights resident Michelle Ward got a parking ticket on Oct. 28 for leaving her car on the street on trash day.
It’s a simple mistake that people frequently make in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.
The problem, however, is that Oct. 28 wasn’t a trash day in her city and the ticket was from an officer in neighboring Dearborn, not the city she lives and was parked in.
Ward lives on a street that runs through both, which seems to have caused the error.
Ward said she tried reaching out to the court, but was told she’d have to schedule a court date to state her case.
After the Press & Guide made a few phone calls for comments, the ticket was dismissed.
Man walks into former girlfriend’s new house while she’s sleeping
Man walks into former girlfriend’s new house while she’s sleeping
A Dearborn woman called police after an ex-boyfriend, who she hadn’t seen in about 10 years, walked into her house without permission at about 5:45 a.m. Sept. 25.
The woman told officers that she had dated the man about 10 years ago, and then he reached out to her recently to attempt to “hook up.”
She agreed to go to lunch with him, and gave him the address of the house she now lives in, a house he had never been to.
He stood her up for lunch, but then came to her house that morning, and walked in an unlocked front door.
Dearborn Heights police commissioner dead at 72
Dearborn Heights Police Commissioner Joseph E. Thomas Jr. died Oct. 2 at the age of 72.
The specific cause of death was not publicly released.
Thomas, known affectionately as “JET,” a nickname based on his initials, had worked in Dearborn Heights since late January when he was appointed as the first commissioner in the city’s history.
Initially, he was appointed to a six-month term, which had been extended once.
Shortly after coming to Dearborn Heights, Thomas and Mayor Bill Bazzi hired Police Chief Jerrod Hart, and the two of them worked for months to update department policies and to improve community relations between the department and residents.
Prior to coming to the city, Thomas had several other law enforcement jobs.
Just before coming to Dearborn Heights, he served as the director of public safety for the city of Ecorse.
Prior to his Ecorse position, Thomas’ law enforcement leadership roles included chief of police for the city of Muskegon Heights, the city of Southfield and the city of Inkster. His longest-tenured job was in Southfield where he worked for more than 20 years between April 1991 and May 2011.
He also was the public safety chief in Albion for more than three years. While in Albion, he also served as acting city manager for a short time.
A book-banning controversy made national news out of Dearborn. The Press & Guide had more than a dozen stories covering various aspects of the situation. The most popular among readers was a column from Brian Stone, where he told his personal story about why the potential bans were bad.
Hate in Dearborn: Are we better than this?
This column was published in October, after an hourslong Board of Education meeting. In it, he wrote:
Recently I prepared to go to my local school board meeting. I put an emergency contact card in my wallet. I wrote a will. I called my partner and I told him I loved him.
I was ready to die.
After the previous Dearborn Public School board meeting erupted into lawlessness and a spume of anti-gay hatred, I knew it was a possibility. This is what Dearborn, Michigan is like for the LGBTQ community in 2022.
I learned to speak truth to power because I have never forgotten what it means to be powerless. Long before I ever knew I was gay, the other kids at Haigh Elementary were bullying me about it. What I faced as a teenager at Dearborn High can only be described as a hate crime.
I was tied up and whipped with a metal chord in the video studio. One of the two teenagers said, as they raised the chord in the air, “Whip that fa–t like a ni–r.” They didn’t stop until I passed out.
These experiences changed me, for better and for worse. That’s why I just can’t let it go when I see bullies trying to push people around.
For more than a month we’ve been hearing incendiary and libelous anti-gay messages on social media and in public spaces. People are using terms like “groomer,” “pedophile” and “sexual perversion” to describe LGBTQ people like me as well as teachers, librarians and our school board.
Business openings and closings, real estate sales and more also were popular stories this quarter.