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"killed multiple police officers"

No. Zero died at the event itself, and the death from stroke initially misreported as being caused by injuries turned out not to be. You were right that we shouldn't believe everything in this newsletter though!

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Zero died at the event itself. Multiple officers committed suicides afterward.

"I agree with Dr. Sheehan’s opinion that trauma of January 6, 2021 led to depression

which, in turn caused Jeffrey Smith’s death. There is a direct cause and effect

relationship between the line of duty work trauma on January 6, 2021 and Jeffrey

Smith’s death on January 15, 2021."

Source: https://goodwinweberlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Dr-Arden-Redacted_Redacted.pdf

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Even if one can make the connection between Jan 6 causing depressing by itself and that created depression causing by itself Jeffrey Smith's death, it is still extremely misleading to state "eventually leading to an insurrection at the US Capitol that killed multiple police officers". Firstly, at best it killed one based on what you have written here, not multiple. Secondly, what you wrote implies that they officers died directly as a result of the event, not sudden onset of psychological issues resulting in suicide 9 days later. Thirdly, why not blame the lack of psychological support services from his employer for his sudden death? Why not blame a history longer than 9 days of psychological problems? None of that is brought up because it is a court proceeding and you don't hire expert witnesses who give evidence you don't like.

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Four officers committed suicide in the months after Jan 6th. That is enough of a cluster, that I'm fine attributing some amount of causation.

Causes and effects do not have take place at the same time. E.g. Working in a coal mine causes lung cancer, even if the miner has been retired for a decade. Etc, etc.

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Yes, but almost nobody gets lung cancer, even coal miners and smokers, but of those who do almost all are smokers or miners. The causation there is pretty clear.

Many people commit suicide for a wide range of reasons, many of whom have never had diagnosed mental issues. Although many people who commit suicide have some sort of trauma, most people who suffer trauma do not commit suicide. The causational link is extremely tenuous in this case.

(Not to mention that not all reported suicides are the result of people killing themselves. )

Looking at it from another perspective, what would you have written if those 4 suicides had actually been killed in the riot? Something almost exactly like what you wrote, I suspect, because what you wrote is how people say "This thing happened and caused this other thing directly in the process." You wouldn't write "The car accident resulted in 3 immediate deaths," because that they died directly as a result of a violent event, even slightly separated as they died of injuries, is assumed. One especially wouldn't write it if one of those deaths was one of the people in the accident killing themselves later that month.

Further, you are not attributing "some amount of causation" you attributed all the causation, even leaving out the part where they killed themselves. Any reasonable person reading what you read would take away "They were killed during the riot, or as a result of injuries received"; no one would take away "They killed themselves later, over a span of months, and some of the cause was probably the trauma from the riot, according to suicide notes and other statements from the victims." Of course then you would want to actually link to the text of those notes and statements.

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I doubt that any suicide is monocausal, but the final escalation of a lifetime of small and large traumas, abuses, and emotions. But I wouldn't have a problem with someone saying "the drugs killed him" after a drug-addicted friend committed suicide, or "the war killed him" after a veteran with PTSD committed suicide, even though we all understand that suicides are more complicated than any one thing.

I think you are using a level linguistic prescription that hardly anyone uses in regular conversation, let alone a casual and space-limited Substack.

However, did I did appreciate your clarity point and have edited it from "killed" to "contributed to the death of."

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A legal ruling by a judge might be considered authoritative, a brief filed by a party to a case less so. If you've ever read Robyn Dawes' "House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth" you would also know the profession has a problem of thinking their experience results in expert "insight" when the data shows otherwise.

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