After the Breaking Point: Police Perspectives on Workforce, Community Engagement, and Legitimacy in the Wake of 2020

The year 2020 marked a period of co-occurring crises in policing, as the murder of George Floyd, nationwide Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic collectively reshaped policing in the United States. While prior research has largely focused on large metropolitan agencies, less is known about how officers in smaller jurisdictions experienced these events. This study examines a mid-sized Mid-Atlantic police agency through interviews with sworn officers ( n = 22) to explore how national events were interpreted locally. Findings show that officers viewed the COVID-19 pandemic primarily as an operational disruption affecting training, fieldwork, and interpersonal development, whereas post-Floyd dynamics were described as more transformative for long-term professional identity, reductions in proactive policing, and police-community relations. Officers attributed recruitment challenges to both legitimacy pressures associated with BLM and COVID-era shifts in labor market expectations and work preferences.