An old building in Westland known as a haunted house around Halloween has been transformed into a Christmas attraction this year.  

The iconic Eloise Asylum has an interesting history. It started as a workhouse in 1839, then developed into an asylum, sanatorium and hospital over time. A century and a half later, in 1982, the facility was closed. Now it’s used as a house of horrors during fall, but the building has become festive for the holiday season this December.  

Kyle Bostick is the owner of MI Bright Lights, a drive-through holiday light show now being hosted at Eloise. Bostick says he and his wife originally started doing shows at their home in Garden City. 

“In the past few years, we’ve had thousands upon thousands of cars at our house every night throughout the season,” he said. “We do Halloween, we do Christmas, we do Fourth of July, and the traffic just became unmanageable.”

At that point they knew they had to find a bigger venue, Bostick said, “and that’s when we started looking. We found this one, and here we are.” 

Cars line up at an entrance tunnel to get in, where thousands of green, red and white lights illuminate the 100-foot path. Families tune into the venue’s low-power radio station and listen to holiday jingles as they roll through the show.

Elves and gingerbread people made of light steer vehicles onto Candy Cane Lane, where visitors can find characters like Rudolph and the Grinch along the way, singing and dancing to the music in the cars. 

Bostick says the process of producing the show is very demanding, both creatively and practically. He says his team worked on programming the light performances throughout the year and started building the set in August. He estimates spending 40 to 100 hours working on each song they use for the show.

“Our show is different than any other show in Michigan because we are the only synchronized pixel drive through light show, which means that all of our lights are synchronized to music,” he said. “They will change colors, they will dance to the beat of the songs, and every time you come will be a different experience.” 

Once the drive-through ends, everyone gets out of their cars to visit Santa Land. Children call out to Santa’s helpers walking through and pose for pictures.  

“We have an interactive walk through with a full-size gingerbread house, lots of cute photo opportunities.We have an interactive Santa mailbox, where kids can mail letters to Santa. On the weekends, we have Santa here. You can get photos with Santa, give him your letter, all that type of stuff,” Bostick said.  

MI Bright Lights will be open each night for the rest December and through Jan. 5. For more information, visit mibrightlights.com. 

The Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney is investigating the cases of 34 Detroit police officers who were working without active law enforcement licenses.

The Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES) reported in November that the Detroit Police Department violated state law by hiring several officers without activating their law enforcement licenses. The department placed the officers involved on administrative duty until their licenses are reinstated.

MCOLES Executive Director Tim Bourgeoise said Detroit Police have failed to request reactivations for some of their returning officers between 2019 and 2024. He noted that the number of officers whose licenses weren’t renewed is low, relative to the 2,500 officers working for DPD, but emphasized the importance of maintaining law enforcement regulations across the board.

“It’s concerning anytime any individual officer is working and is not properly licensed, because state law requires an individual to have an active law enforcement license,” he said.

Licenses for active officers are deactivated every time they change jobs, and must be reactivated for their new agencies. It’s illegal to work in the field otherwise. The rules require agencies to audit their rosters every January.

Darryl Woods, chair of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, says the error was due to a lapse in communication between DPD and the law enforcement commission, calling it an “administrative snafu.”

He said the department is making structural changes to prevent those mistakes in the future, primarily by streamlining hiring responsibilities to the human resources department.

“There were some miscommunications that occurred that led the department to understand that these officers were good to go,” Woods said. “I don’t want to get into the blame game…but you know MCOLES needs to make sure that their stuff is strengthened as well.”

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy is examining the case in Detroit. Earlier this year, a deputy in Branch County was found working without an active license. That led to 57 civil infractions and three felonies being dismissed.

Branch County Prosecutor Zachary Stampien said there are specific tasks that are illegal for officers to perform without an active license, such as enforcing motor vehicle laws.

“All speeding tickets issued by him were technically issued without authority and void,” Stampien said. “You know, if there was a traffic stop that led to the discovery of drugs, that traffic stop would not have been legitimate, because a normal citizen cannot effectuate a traffic stop for speeding.”

Stampien added that search warrants carried out by the deputy were nullified as well.

“The search warrant said very plainly on the beginning of it, ‘I’m a peace officer of the State of Michigan. This is my training and experience.’ But because none of that was actually true, that would have been problematic if we pushed forward with the cases.”

In the Branch County case, citizens were allowed to claim refunds for any fines they paid. The same thing could happen in Detroit, Stampien says, but the process would likely be more complicated because of the higher number of cases involved.

Still, Stampien said an officer being unlicensed doesn’t necessarily invalidate all cases they worked on involving different crimes like shoplifting or homicide.

“It would really depend on the facts and circumstances of their investigation, and that’s what Ms. Worthy will have to really look at is, what does the lack of legal authority do for their investigation? Does it make their investigation illegal, or is it just a fact that we have to work around? And I think that’s what you’ll have to look at in each case.”

Worthy said she needs to collect more information before deciding how to proceed.

Several Michigan residents were among the many men, women and students of color who received a wave of racist text messages invoking slavery following the 2024 election — prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies.

The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several other states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. 

WDET received screenshots of the text messages from several local students who received them — among them, a middle schooler from Grosse Pointe. The messages generally used a similar tone, but varied in wording, focusing on the minority status of the people being harassed.

Some of the messages instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a particular time “with your belongings,” while others didn’t include a location. Others mentioned the incoming presidential administration.

The widespread incidents are still under investigation by the FBI, with support from the Federal Communications Commission and local law enforcement. The Ohio Attorney General’s office also said it was investigating the messages.

One Black student at Hope College who received a text message, who asked to be anonymous, told WDET that she believes Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election emboldened white supremacists and other bigoted individuals to participate in this type of behavior.

“When the Democrats won back in 2020, America became a more woke country and I feel like the reds felt the need to hide,” she said. “So Trump winning and the Republicans winning practically everything just gave them an opening to go back to the way things were.”

She also suggested that social media apps have made it a trend of sorts for trolls to send ignorant messages, and how misogyny could affect the disproportionate number of women being attacked.

“Honestly I feel like it’s stuff that people are picking up. I think apps like TikTok are spreading the information and giving these racists ideas,” she said. “I feel like it’s a lot of younger guys doing this trend too, because men tend to feed off that energy and want to feel powerful.”

The student emphasized her fear for her privacy and safety, if unknown people can find her phone number and are now willing to be so blatant with their racism.

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that they aren’t sure who is behind the messages but estimated they had been sent to more than 10 states, including most Southern states, Maryland, Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. 

The leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”

Associated Press writers  Ayanna Alexander, Ali Swenson and Gary Fields contributed to this report.