The night of July 19 in Cincinnati, Ohio, a University of Cincinnati police officer shot and killed an African-American man in his vehicle.

Officers responding to the scene asked the officer what occurred and he responded that he had been dragged by the vehicle and was forced to fire upon the occupant. The officer, Ray Tensing, killed 43-year-old Samuel Dubose, and the incident would have been forgotten and probably filed as a legal killing if not for the body camera that the officer had been wearing at the time of the shooting.

Upon reviewing the footage, it appears that Tensing was not dragged by Dubose’s car but appeared to panic and resort to deadly force. An investigation was quickly mounted and Tensing was fired from the force and is now facing a murder trial. The event itself sparked further investigation by the governor about how police were trained and hired statewide.

This incident is not an isolated occasion. Across the country riots, protests, and killings are making headlines as attention is drawn to an apparent increase in police violence and brutality. With this increase, students, a group historically known for their political activism, have come together to protest these killings and the increase in police brutality over the past decade. These clashes have been covered by the media and more and more exposed on social media.

Students, professors, and affiliates of colleges and universities across the country have experienced this violence firsthand. Just this year, Virginia Tech honor student Martese Johnson was thrown to the ground and severely injured on St. Patrick’s Day when an officer used unnecessary force to subdue the student and arrest him.

This past January, police in Columbus, Ohio, responded to jubilant rejoicing as students and fans celebrated Ohio State’s National Championship win with all odds against them. The police used tear gas, pepper spray, and other non-lethal violent methods to disperse the crowd, but complaints were raised as to the necessity of the actions and the failure of the police to call for the crowd to disperse.

Video footage of the incident and eyewitness accounts tell a story of revelers on the sidewalk being forced away from the campus district by heavily armed and armored police with little or no clear warning.

Many have begun asking whether this is an actual increase in brutality or whether this is simply a phenomenon of social media. With so many big names like Ferguson and Baltimore bouncing around in the news nowadays, it would seem that every week there’s another fatal police shooting. This has been declared by some to be because of an increased wave of police violence and perhaps conspiracies of government control or declaration of martial law. Reputable news sources have been declaring that killings by the police are at a two decade high. So is any of this true?

Yes and no. The problem with making sweeping claims like these is that they do not examine the problem in detail. According to data from the FBI, the number of deaths at the hands of police (termed justifiable homicide) is up and by a margin of 12 percent; that amounts to 44 more deaths per year nationwide by police since 1997. However, suggestions have been raised that the data brought forward by the FBI is strictly legalistic or even biased in favor of the police.

Some watchdog groups are claiming that last year well over 1,000 people were killed by police. In 2013 alone, according to killedbythepolice.net, which activated in May of 2013, there were 748 people killed by the police in approximately eight months. Not only does the site report these incidents through users, but it is curated and links to media news sources are provided for anyone to look at.

So the data is off and there is much more coverage of brutality with the advent of social media and smart phones. What’s the big deal? The big deal is the crushing power of fear that police wield intentionally or otherwise. These men and women unconsciously can crush resistance to overstepping their bounds by simply existing.

The police’s presence is often enough to silence the most tenacious of protestors. As the slam poet Buddy Wakefield put it, “I’ve always resented the fact that when a cop drives by I feel paranoid instead of protected.”

In some sense, we do live in a police state. The only problem is neither the people nor the police want that.

For students, I encourage you to continue fighting against these problems. Your involvement means the world since your age group is largely politically sedentary. By acting out, students draw attention to issues. Just think back to the Vietnam War protests — many of the marchers were young college students who wanted to see a change in the world and they made it happen. When dealing with the police, be kind, be lawful, but be firm. You do have rights. Know them and exercise them.