A contagious shooting is a sociological phenomenon observed in police personnel, in which one person firing on a target can induce others to begin shooting without knowing why they are firing. The term may have been coined, but certainly rose to prominence in public discourse in the aftermath of the killing of Amadou Diallo by the NYPD in 1999.

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Besides the above examples, the phenomenon has been observed in other contexts. A former CIA employee and FBI firearms instructor observed it in training. "Consistently, in every class, officers would shoot at their target upon hearing others shoot, even when their particular target board did not contain the called target." He suggests that one reason it occurs is because of muscle memory: "[T]he targets turn, or the whistle blows, and all the officers shoot together until a cease-fire signal is given." Law professor Eugene O'Donnell was once quoted describing the notion as "debatable" although in the same interview he agreed with its existence, saying that in classic cases involving contagious shooting, "a gun was shot before any officers fired", and thus "the officers involved began shooting because of fear or because of the sound of a colleague firing".