Yes I have and even went near the south central and Inglewood area. I know skid row does have a lot of homelessness but that is just one part of the big city. Kinda like San Franciscos problem. We went past Compton in one case on city streets.
When we were driving back from Cincinnati back to Waterloo Region, my father decided to exit off the interstate to one of Detroit's ghettos to get gas (cheaper outside of the core than inside), it was midnight and did look like grand theft auto but nothing happened xD.
Edit: LA is bad in parts but every big metropolitan has bad areas, for example Jane and finch in Toronto, east Washington DC, I think it was east Vancouver, montréal-nord, phoung 4 t.p. ho chi Minh...
This is part that you've seen. Heh. But there's a lot of crime happening in LA.