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Since 1981, some 26 police officers across the United States have been shot and killed by fellow police officers who have mistaken them for dangerous criminals. These fatal shootings are doubly tragic, first because both the shooters and victims in such situations are risking their lives to enforce the law and protect the public, and second because many of these deaths are preventable. The dangers that give rise to these deaths are inherent in policing, but those dangers can be reduced and more deaths prevented. Over the last fifteen years, ten of the fourteen officers killed in these mistaken-identity, police-on-police shootings have been people of color. The two most recent of these fatal, police-on-police shootings took place in New York State, and in both cases the victims were off-duty, African-American police officers: Officer Christopher Ridley, killed in Westchester County in January 2008; and Officer Omar Edwards, killed in Harlem in May 2009. These two most recent tragedies reverberated powerfully, not only within the ranks of law enforcement but with the broader public. In press accounts, public debate, and informal conversations among police officers, we heard widespread speculation about the role that race may have played in these shootings, not based on any specific evidence of bias in