"...died of cardiac arrest..."

Now, testimony before former Supreme Court judge Thomas Braidwood is revealing that armed RCMP officers in bulletproof vests were so fearful of a guy with a stapler that, within 30 seconds of arriving on the scene, they tasered Dziekanski five times in 31 seconds. He died of cardiac arrest. [LINK]

"...died of cardiac arrest."


But 'cardiac arrest' is synonymous with 'clinical death'.

In other words, "He died of clinical death."

"...most physicians regard cardiac arrest a symptom of death, rather than a cause."


Your next question can take either of two approaches:


Why did his heart stop?

This might include a whole shopping list of factors going back into the history of the subject. Weak heart. Bad genes. Poor diet. Alcohol withdrawal. In a sense, it's the wrong question.


What caused his heart to stop?

We're asking for a cause that is also temporally-associated. Did anything happen just before the death? Anything short, sharp and easily identifiable? Starts with the letter 't'.


Don't forget - Common Law and common sense says that you take your victims as you find them. [LINK]


Sometimes when 'A' is followed by 'B' - it is because 'A' was a direct cause of 'B'.

You can apply all the Post hoc ergo propter hoc Latin-gobbledygook you want [LINK], but this cognitive bias exists because it is often extremely accurate. It's how we understand the world. If we abandon real world observations of apparent Cause-and-Effect because they're occasionally wrong, then you might as well unscrew your eyeballs and go hang yourself.

Especially when there are now more than 400 coincidences to try to explain away.

Using Post hoc ergo propter hoc as a defense is the first step to insanity.

And it's the last refuge of scoundrels.