When former Assemblyman Chris Norby was arrested earlier this month, for alleged domestic violence, he did not get a chance to tell his side of the story. And although he has since sent out a wistful email about the event he has as of yet still not shared what really happened prior to his arrest. That is about to change.
On December 17, 2013, Martha Norby hit Chris Norby in the left eye (photos above and below). These photos were taken by his old Oxy friend and attorney Alex Wallace who picked up Chris and took him for treatment with Alex’s friend Margaret McCabe, a 10-year Army Medic and Iraq War veteran. Concerned about ongoing light flashes, pain and blackening eye socket, Norby was taken on Christmas Eve day to an optometry clinic near Alex’s Lakewood home.
A medical report (pictured below) clearly attributes “spousal abuse” as the cause, and reports “massive bruising” and “floaters and flashes.” Chris declined when the doctor offered to send the police the report, not wanting family disruption, and hoping–obviously in vain–that he could continue with his increasingly violent and abusive wife. Chris has since seen two other doctors and continues to have pain and light flashes. On the day he was falsely charged, his wife had turned a garden hose on him, hitting again his left eye with a high-powered stream of water, increasing his pain yet again. His booking photo clearly showed that he could not fully open his left eye.
Martha’s behavior, sadly, is nothing new to those in the know. A couple of years ago, in 2010, a good friend of Chris was watching the Rose Bowl with him, in Norby’s garage. With about 3 minutes left to go the TV went black. Chris pushed on the power button, but then it went black again. Martha had grabbed the remote and kept turning the TV off., then she yelled at Norby’s friend to leave…”no more football!” Chris explained to Martha that there were only 3 minutes left in the game, and he asked her to turn it back on. She refused, then began swearing in Spanish (words beginning in “ch”). Then she threw the remote at Chris, breaking it. While he was on the floor trying to put it together, she yelled -“you hit me, I call the police!” Chris hadn’t laid a finger on her. And I don’t believe he ever did.
Should Chris have called the police when his wife threw the remote at him in front of his friend? Should he have done so when she damaged his eye just before Christmas or blasted his eye again last week? In hindsight, yes. But she got to the police first, with no evidence nor any witnesses.
Many in the community and even in her own family have witnessed Martha’s violent physical and verbal outbursts. Some of them are now stepping forward including our friend Tony Bushala, who never forgot what he saw that day while he was watching the Rose Bowl with his friend Chris.
Tony was the one who brought the murder of Kelly Thomas to light when he posted a picture of Thomas, as he lay dying in the hospital after he was beaten by Fullerton cops. Today Tony sent me the pictures in this post and I have a feeling that they will have as enormous an impact at the Thomas photo. They should put to rest the notion that Chris did anything to merit his arrest by the same Fullerton police department that murdered Thomas and got away with it.