Paco Mendoza is a gifted honors student, the younger brother of Hector Mendoza, and the youngest son of Carmen Mendoza. He wants to leave the projects areas of New York City to make something of his life. Unfortunately, gangster Felix Aguilar isolated Paco and his brother and terrorized them into joining his "crew". This separated the brothers from their childhood friends, Isaiah Morris and twins Naomi and Ty Johnson, whose favorite park was across from the Mendoza family barber shop that was running before the Mendoza family father died and the place was sold.
All six of them crossed paths one night when Aguilar wanted to harass Isaiah and the Johnson twins just to show off, making the Mendozas go along with it. The Mendozas tried to play along with it being a joke, but the three kids fought back with their own retorts, Naomi most of all. Aguilar was particularly unhinged, hallucinating everyone insulting and opposing him. Aguilar responded by pulling a gun on Naomi to scare her and them shooting her in her stomach. Aguilar then screamed at Hector and Paco to help him force the three on the blacktop, threatening both brothers to make Paco shoot Isaiah and Ty's heads point blank, killing them. Naomi was left to die when the trio ran off, and she was taken to the hospital, where she gave her statement before falling into a fatal coma. The brothers reluctantly obeyed Aguilar's orders to get rid of the gun by hiding it in their father's ashes.
Police sketches from witnesses led to the brothers, with Carmen in disbelief her sons would ever be violent or murderous. But Paco made a shocking confession to the entire massacre and was arrested, all to protect his family and out of fear of Aguilar. But Hector came forward and told the truth so it wouldn't ruin Paco's life and he wouldn't get the death penalty. Carmen was devastated and rushed to her sons' defenses, knowing of Aguilar and horrified that he preyed on her surviving family.
Aguilar was tracked and arrested after a violent standoff, then goaded into confessing with some trickery. Hector and Paco cooperated with prosecution to get lesser sentences. (CI: "Senseless")