Ryan Atwood is a troubled, 16-year-old kid living in the rough, crime-ridden neighborhood of Chino located in San Bernadino, California, who gets thrown out of his own house by his alcoholic and neglectful mother and her abusive, alcoholic boyfriend after Ryan gets into trouble with the law when his self-destructive older brother, Trey, implicates him in the theft of a car. Ryan calls Sanford 'Sandy' Cohen, a public defender who represented Ryan in the past for his misdeeds, who takes the hom ...[Read Story ]