Since JMHoo wants someone to fact check this, I’ll go ahead.

Saying that someone died of “natural causes” in the setting of an event like January 6 just means that his death was not directly attributable to trauma. It does not, in any way, shape or form mean that the events of that day did not (or, to be fair, did) contribute to his death. Is it just a random coincidence that a man who was feeling well enough to go to work that day happened to die that day, or did the significant stress on him related to the actions of the day contribute in some way to his death.

Now, herein lies the problem (really two problems). The first being it is difficult to definitively answer the question. If you want to believe that the individual in question just happened to die on that day at that time, completely unrelated to the events unfolding, then fine, but good luck proving the unprovable (and arguably improbable). But again, good luck to those attempting to definitively argue otherwise, people do drop dead unexpectedly. The second, and where I will grant that there is very reasonable ground, is whether in the case of a “natural death” (and I use quotes not to be demeaning, but because the whole concept seems somewhat odd, all human life ends in death, and that death is precipitated by at least one, but most often multiple factors) potentially triggered by a significant stressor, should that stressor be counted as a contributing factor in the death. Maybe not (certainly in a purely legal sense it would be nearly impossible to prove that the stressor was a cause of death) But rationally, it doesn’t seem that far fetched to say that the events of that day likely (although again not definitively) contributed to his death.

The reality is most death is multi-factorial. Comorbidities (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, obesity, COPD, CHF, smoking, genetics etc), lead to other conditions or predispose to worsening outcomes (heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary emboli, infectious diseases, etc). Significant stressors on the body can also play a role, which is why the narrative that Sicknick’s death was ruled to be due to natural causes, therefore the events on January 6 were not a significant contributing factor bothers me so much. Maybe he still would have died that day regardless of what transpired, or maybe the next, or maybe a week later. Or maybe he would still be alive, having either undergone some treatment at a later date when his care wasn’t diverted from medical to trauma, or maybe he would be living day to day as a ticking time bomb waiting for some other stressor to trigger a major event, I have no idea. But the notion that his death being ruled as due to “natural causes” somehow absolves the events of that day seems rather dumb, at least to me.