Please help me identify this gang movie.

[Scurvy Dog]

This was either a short film or an After School Special from the late 1970s or early 1980s. It was about this kid (Puerto Rican, I think) who lived in this apartment building, possibly in NYC. He would pull a wagon up and down the halls and sell soup to the people who lived in the building.

He also joined this gang who would steal things and sell them. The gang started to steal TVs from the people in the apartment, so this kid set them up to steal a "marked" TV (possibly one they had stolen already). When they get back to their hideout, they celebrate by drinking beer, but then hear police sirens and recognize the TV and realize the kid set them up and presumably beat him up (offscreen).

The film ends with this kid lying in bed bandaged up, with the other people from the apartment feeding him soup. He is once again selling soup when the end credits roll.

I saw this many years ago and haven't found out for sure what it was. It MAY be the After School Special episode "Gaucho" (I'm looking into that). I have also looked on imdb.com, and this is as much as I've found out there.

Anybody who knows the answer to this one is good. Real good. The best.

[paperdollorphan]

I have been netflixing all the After school Specials the past couple months and have not seen the episode you speak of. But it sounds good, and worthy of After school Specialness, I will let you know if I come across it. Have you seen "Ace hits the Big Time"? It's another "gang related" episode.