Wilson Plans Push for Anti-Crime Laws : Violence: Governor calls for January forum to build bipartisan support. Victim’s families join emotional meeting.

Flanked by the parents of a Granada Hills High School student killed in 1990, a grim-faced Gov. Pete Wilson pledged Wednesday to convene a summit of state leaders in January to build bipartisan support for a package of tough anti-crime legislation.

The summit would be a forum for mobilizing broad public support for a crime-fighting agenda that, the governor maintained, has been too often stymied in the state Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats.

Wilson said the summit will be held in Los Angeles.

“We need to forge a bipartisan consensus that will be quick to enact these laws,” Wilson, a Republican, said.

“To return California to where it can legitimately be called a civilized society, I am inviting every law enforcement official in California and everyone interested in public safety to come together in a statewide summit to stop the violence.”

Wilson’s call for the summit, climaxing an emotionally charged meeting with the families of people killed in street violence, comes as the governor gears up his reelection campaign. Throughout his political career, Wilson has frequently, and successfully, positioned himself as a tough crime fighter and a compassionate champion of victims’ rights.

While Democratic officials said they would encourage their party’s legislators to participate in such a summit, they questioned the timing of Wilson’s initiatives.

“Another Wilson photo op--big deal,” said California Democratic Party Chairman Bill Press.

“My question is, where has Wilson been over the past three years? During that time, arrests have gone down 18% statewide, the number of cops on the street is down 1.4% and the violent crime is up 4.6%. No last-minute flurry of news conferences can substitute for three years of failed leadership.”

At Wednesday’s news conference, Wilson also unveiled his proposals to increase the penalties for certain crimes.

The governor proposed that those convicted of murder in a carjacking or drive-by shooting receive the death penalty or life imprisonment without possibility of parole. And he proposed life imprisonment for career criminals caught with deadly weapons, for repeat sex offenders and for arsonists who are repeat offenders, have caused massive property damage or who strike during fire seasons.

Earlier this year, Wilson signed legislation to stiffen the penalties for carjackers and drive-by shooters. But Wednesday, the governor said these new laws did not go far enough.

The governor also said he wants to cut the sentence-reduction credits prisoners can earn for good behavior or for working so that the time criminals serve more closely reflects their sentences.

Wilson’s proposals were heartily applauded by about 40 members of Mad About Rising Crime, a nonprofit group founded by Lin and Clark Squires, a Northridge couple whose 15-year-old son, Marc, was killed in 1990 in a dispute with another teen-ager over an electronic beeper.

While Wilson said he was hopeful that a bipartisan approach could be mapped out to strengthen the state’s anti-crime laws, he made it clear that in the past the obstacle to tougher laws has been the state Legislature.

Talking to the crime-victim families before the news conference, Wilson urged them to help him get anti-crime proposals out of committee and onto the floor of the state Senate and Assembly for an “up or down vote where the legislators can be held accountable.”

Joining Wilson at the news event was Charlotte Austin, a South-Central Los Angeles mother whose 13-year-old daughter was killed in a hail of gunfire five years ago when she was mistaken for someone else by drug dealers; the mother of John Michael Holden, a 19-year-old killed during a Granada Hills pizza store robbery; and the family of Soo Won Chough, 52, of Anaheim, who was killed in Koreatown last month.