How filmmaker David Ayer’s early years in South Central Los Angeles has given him a distinct understanding of the LAPD:
‘I was feral,’ he recalls, ‘uncontrollable, did my own thing. Brushes with the law and all that stuff.’ He punctuates this with a gruff laugh. ‘It was a disaster.’ Most everyone who knew Ayer was predicting a future in prison for him. ‘It was just the expectation that a lot of people had of me. Because I was not a good kid, and the consequences were getting more serious.’ When he was 14, his mother sent him to live with cousins who were among the first urban homesteaders to move into a West Adams Craftsman, in the shadow of the 10 freeway. ‘The irony is, I was just a bush-league juvenile delinquent,’ Ayer says. ‘And I end up in fucking South Central. Now I’m around the professionals. I was like, ‘Holy shit.’ I quickly grew accustomed, though. You can get used to anything.’
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