Aiden Portes found out his 14-year-old brother, Christian, was injured through an anonymous text.
“We woke my mom up and I said 'Mom, I just got a text message that Christian was shot,'” Aiden said. “And she said 'what?' and we ran downstairs and since it’s not that far… me and my friends started running and my mom actually drove.”
It happened in 2009. Aiden said his brother had gone to a party when Miguel Moscoso, a member of the 10th Street Gang, killed Christian.
“This was already taped off,” Aiden explained. “Alright? My mom was parked right over there in that corner, and then my friend walked up to the yellow tape, which was right here. And she saw his bike right in the middle of the street, and then the ambulance was lifting him up to the car, to the thing and working on him.”
Christian was taken to the hospital and the next day, doctors told Aiden’s family that Christian was brain dead. He passed away a short time after. Now, 13 years later, Aiden found closure by writing a book based on his brother’s life. The book is called "14 Chapters."
“I’ve struggled for so long, I’ve had so much anger inside me for so long, and I decided, you know, I can’t live like this,” Aiden said. “I can’t live with all this anger. I’m not able to love correctly, I’m not able to give my heart correctly because I hold so much anger because of what they did to my brother.”
Aiden said he’s still healing and the pain hasn’t gone away and the book was just a way to close the chapter. He said he was able to heal by writing a letter to the man who shot Christian and receiving a letter back from him.
Gun violence isn’t new to Buffalo. The city is currently healing from the mass shooting at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue. He told those healing from the mass shooting to find their own closure in their own way.
“Everyone’s healing process is different,” Aiden said. “Everyone’s closure is different. Mine just happens to be forgiveness. I’m learning how to forgive, this is something new to me.”
Aiden said he owns a gun and doesn’t like when his right to own his gun is attacked by lawmakers.
“But I think there should be some kind of… cause this kid walking into Tops with a gun, this kid who just walked up to my brother and killed him with a gun, how can we figure out a way to stop that?” he said. “How can we do that? I don’t know, I mean this is just going to be an ongoing debate because what’s the answer? We don’t know, I don’t know. But I do think that there should be something done.”