Man Who Swung Bat at Gay Rally Gets Probation : Crime: Judge orders 3 years’ supervision for anti-homosexual assailant at Garden Grove demonstration. Activists laud what they see as a strong punishment.

A Garden Grove man who admitted swinging a baseball bat at a crowd of gay demonstrators earlier this month was sentenced Wednesday to three years’ probation on misdemeanor charges and ordered to stay away from any gay rallies.

Orange County gay activists lauded what they viewed as a strong sentence, saying that crimes of violence against them have too often been treated leniently in the courts.

The defendant, Thomas E. Rosales, 41, who moved to California two years ago after spending about 13 years in Indiana prisons, said he was also pleased by the outcome.

“At least I didn’t get any more jail time,” Rosales said. He had served four days in County Jail after the Oct. 5 attack during a large rally in Garden Grove that drew an estimated 1,000 activists to protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of a gay rights bill.

No one was seriously hurt, but police said Rosales charged a crowd of demonstrators with a sawed-off bat and yelled, “I’m going to knock your head off!” He took several swings, knocking a sign into the head of one activist, police said. He then struggled with several police officers as they took his bat away and led him from the scene.

Waiving his right to an attorney, Rosales pleaded guilty Wednesday to three misdemeanor counts--assault, battery, and possession of a concealed weapon--the bat. “I pleaded guilty because it was an open-and-shut case. I just wanted to get it over with,” he said.

Rosales, who said he was laid off from his job taking donations at Children’s Hospital of Orange County after his arrest, expressed regret over the incident in his appearance Wednesday morning before Municipal Judge Sarah Sheffield Jones in Westminster.

But in a later interview, Rosales said he was “glad” he used his bat at the rally “to show (gays) that at least there’s one person against them. . . . I just voiced my opinion.”

He added: “Gays--that’s where most of your AIDS comes from, and it’s kind of embarrassing to the rest of us. Who wants to see two guys walk into a bar like they do?”

Michael McEwen, 20, of Garden Grove, the man struck in the head by a sign during Rosales’ attack, said he would have preferred that Rosales had received more jail time, but that “I think this was a good decision.”

McEwen, who is in telemarketing, said: “What I was really worried about was that they would just let him go without a charge. . . . He could’ve killed somebody out there.”

Joel Loquvam, an attorney and gay rights activist who took part in the rally, said of the sentence: “I’m happy that the judge was persuaded that such action . . . deserves a high penalty. . . . These kinds of things have traditionally been downplayed” in the courts.

In addition to the three years’ probation, Jones sentenced Rosales to six days in jail--equal to the time that the court shows him as already having served. But Rosales said he was only in jail four days after his arrest.

Jones also ordered Rosales “not to appear at any demonstrations for gay rights.”

In an interview, the judge said of the sentence: “It’s about the highest we give (for the type of offense), but it’s not uncommon. . . . “I view this as a very serious issue,” Jones said. “Gay people have the right to the same protection as everyone else.”

Charges are still pending against 16 gay activists at the same rally who blocked the intersection at Garden Grove Boulevard and Euclid Avenue and refused a police order to leave. They were cited for unlawful assembly and failure to disperse, both misdemeanors.