The historical version of this was the ww2 airplane patch job stats, where american bombers returning after getting hit were hit in specific areas and the statistician had to explain that those who returned despite that damage meant those were not the places to reinforce but the other areas of the plane makeing it more survivable, or more recently how Santa Monica CA almost removed crosswalks because that was where the highest pedestrian mortally rates were. In both those cases the people making the assumptions missed the bigger picture, for the planes that those who got hit in more sensitive spots got downed and for pedestrians getting killed at crosswalks that was because that is where pedestrians cross the street most of the time, almost leading to more deaths.