"The Barrio Boys"

Tagline – “The Baddest Bitch On The Streets”

“25 words or less” – A ruthless, cunning 42-year old mother of three controls the New York faction of a Puerto Rican street gang with stunning brutality and absolute power

Full Summary:

Carmen Rivera, a very religious, 42-year old mother of three, is just being released from Rikers Island prison after serving time for wire fraud which she insists was a government conspiracy to marginalize her standing within her community.

Hiding behind her guise as a community activist within The Barrio Boys Community & Cultural Center in East Harlem, Carmen is actually the head of the New York City chapter of a Puerto Rican street gang called “El Centro” that originated in the San Juan prison system.  While she has absolute control of the New York faction, she ultimately answers to the head bosses back in Puerto Rico.  Once she’s free from prison she wastes no time in quickly reestablishing her power on the streets.

During a welcome home party in her honor, Carmen, known affectionately as “La Madrina” to friends, family and gang members alike, assembles her leadership council with the only order of business being to kill enemies of The Barrio Boys - rival drug dealers encroaching on their turf, local business owners late on their protection payments, prosecution witnesses preparing to testify against jailed gang members, incarcerated former criminals who have ratted on gang activity, or gang members that question Carmen’s absolute authority, even if that gang member is her own cousin.

The gang features plenty of heavily tattooed, colorful characters, most of them ultra-violent and some who are consumed in simmering, petty intra-gang rivalries in order to improve their personal standing within the group.  At the center of Carmen’s world between the gang and her family are her three sons – Pablo Rivera, a tough and violent young male in his early twenties who’s already a gang veteran; “Li’l” Cesar Rivera, an impressionable, older teenager in high school named after Julius Caesar who is just getting started in the gang; and Alejandro “Bugsy” Rivera, a feisty ten year old who isn’t in the gang yet but does menial tasks for them like serving drinks, he’s nicknamed “Bugsy” after the infamous gangster Bugsy Siegel.

Headquartered in East Harlem while Carmen and her family live in Ridgewood, Queens; The Barrio Boys gang activity includes drug dealing in crack cocaine, heroin, marijuana, LSD, crystal meth, PCP and ecstasy, local protection rackets, stealing, theft, kidnapping, murder, extortion, human trafficking, witness intimidation, home invasions, money laundering, burglary and weapons and explosives trafficking, just to name a few of their illicit acts.  While the group works closely with other chapters around the country, danger and violence lurks around every corner on any given day in the city; besides constantly fighting other gangs within their own ethnicity, The Barrio Boys also fight other ethnic gangs like Dominicans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, African-Americans, Chinese, Vietnamese and even the Italians and Irish.

Beyond the killing orders that Carmen issues during her first council meeting after her release from prison, the main focus of the first episode is two-fold.  Carmen approaches Angel Ortiz, the most feared enforcer of the gang who is currently incarcerated in the New York state prison system, to kill an informant against “El Centro” who is also serving time in the state prison system.  He accepts this assignment in return for a promotion within the gang when he gets out of jail.  In what may become a complicated matter later, Angel, who’s married with children, is also Carmen’s secret lover. 

 

Simultaneously, the bosses in Puerto Rico have asked Carmen to kill the leader of the New Jersey chapter who has become sloppy and “too big for his britches.”  She assigns her son, Pablo, who’s eager to climb up the organization’s hierarchy, to take care of the hit.  In return, and unbeknownst to his mother, he recruits his younger brother, Cesar, to be the triggerman and “make his bones” with his first killing for the gang.  Tensions rise on the final stakeout when the hit team’s obvious inexperience shines through and what happens at the end of it will be sure to have long-term repercussions throughout the “El Centro” organization and their affiliated chapters.
 The Barrio Boys Screenplay