Teen shot on Mardi Gras 2018 asks WDSU reporter Juliana Mazza to prom

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Sam Butler, who was 18 years old when was shot in the head while at a Mardi Gras parade last year, asked WDSU reporter Juliana Mazza to be his prom date Saturday (April 27), according to the reporter’s tweets. Mazza has been reporting on his recovery since he was injured in the February 2018 shooting, she said.

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Butler was shot three months before he was scheduled to graduate, when he was in a group that ended up on the wrong side of gunfire after a fight broke out near the parade route in the Central Business District. On Saturday, more than a year since the shooting, Mazza shared photos of her next to Butler sitting in his wheelchair on a red carpet.

Before the shooting left Butler with a life-altering brain injury, he was a promising athlete on Walter L. Cohen College Prep’s football and baseball teams.

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