The mandatory confinement decreed in Argentina in the early 2020s positioned the security forces as essential workers. The police/pandemic/confinement relationship thus revolved around two differentiated poles of meaning: one that heralded a police force that takes care of use and another that denounced police violence. This paper explores this debate on the basis of three inseparable concerns: the police roles and policing practices that encourage these current crisis scenarios; the lessons they teach us given their potential reiteration; and, above all, the local and regional data revealed that allow us to reflect empirically and politically on our specific Latin American experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]