bats throughout human history seem to have this image of evil, dark, and dangerous.

they seem to have got this bad impression in our cultures. there is definitely something odd about them. but just because they're odd doesn't mean they're bad. they are quite fascinating animals. the more you get to know them, the more fascinating they are. the more social creatures you see them become. and some of them are really beautiful. but bats do carry the viruses they carry and unfortunately, right now, it is very strange, we've probably got a bat virus that's killing people. good evening. i'm anderson cooper.

when covid-19 first surfaced at the end of 2019, scientists wanted to know where it came from and how this deadly virus ended up in humans. although answers are not certain, it seems likely the coronavirus originated in bats. bats are diverse and ancient creatures and they've been on earth longer than we have. despite that, there is still a lot we don't know. tonight we take a look at this enigmatic animal and dig into the mystery of covid-19. in the last 20 years, some of the deadliest virus outbreaks have come from bats. sars, ebola, so what is it about these creatures and the way they spread pathogens that can be so dangerous. >> the fact bats are carrying viruses is not in and of itself extraordinary. every animal has its normal suite of viruses and bacteria that it normally carries.

people do as well. we carry viruses, bacteria, the majority are benign or beneficial, some of which cause disease. it is the fact bats do tends to carry a higher proportion of virus that's have the ability to infect people. the question is really, why do we see some of these incredibly bad viruses coming out of bats? >> it was 7:00 p.m. on december 30th, 2019. when a package arrived at the wu han institute of virology. in it, medical samples from an infectious disease hospital. several patients were suffering from atypical pneumonia. doctors suspected a novel cyrus. the doctor's cell phone rang shortly there after. >> she got a call from her boss who said drop whatever you're doing and come back to the lab right now. >> dr. xi is known in china as

the bat woman. she's one of the leading experts on bat-borne diseases. >> she is at the central of e-merlinging diseases in wuhan. >> the biological four safety research is the highest level that exists. >> doctors feared the cluster of atypical pneumonia patients in wuhan might be infwektd the same family. viruses that caused the outbreak of sars in 2003. severe acute respiratory syndrome. >> more and more people were getting infected. we started to see on chinese social media in particular, the disease was growing. >> in new york, ecohealth alliance, a nonprofit organization devoted to tracking emerging diseases, began to take notice. >> we started to get our first inkling that something unusual was happening by looking to social media in china. they mentioned there was an

unusual cluster of respiratory disease going. on i remember talking on peter about the potential this might be another sars-like event. >> peter is the president of ecohealth alliance. he has worked closely with the wuhan institute of virology and dr. xi. their collaboration was crucial in skorg the origin of the 2003 sars outbreak. the world health organization assembled a team. with one of the world's top emerging disease experts to find the source of the deadly outbreak. these virus hunters were pursuing a theory that bats could be the origin of sars. the team headed to the region in southern china to try to solve the mystery of sars. >> xi and a take. researchers started exploring caves in southern china, looking for bats that could have been the origin of that first sars

outbreak. >> dr. john epstein was a researcher on that expedition. >> when we go into an environment like a bat cave to catch bats, we have to protect ourselves. that includes gloves, we wear a respirator, like a mask. and then we wear eye protection. >> we walk into a place that could carry the next pandemic. that's a risky thing. we go in during the day to scope out where the bats are and try to work out what species are in there. then we set up nets outside and catch them when they fly out in the evening and go back in the morning. >> we do everything we can to ensure the safety and well being of the animals and we have a basic set of samples we correct. oral swaks, fecal pellets, blood. >> over the course of eight months, they samples caves all over southern china and then them back to the lab.

>> it really took better part of eight years of consistent and persistent sampling, testing different populations around until we finally found the missing link we were looking for. >> that link was a bat virus gent genetically connected to sars. >> that was the nail in the coffin. >> the doctor told us bat-borne coronavirus there's cause more outbreaks. we need to find them before they find us. >> that original sars coronavirus in 2003 started in china. it spread to hong kong, taiwan and then the rest of the world causing 8,000 cases and 800 deaths. >> that same year, the chinese government approved the construction of the level four lab. the first in china. it opened in 2015 and is rated to study the world's deadliest

viruses. >> this p-4 laboratory will majorly be used for research on highly pathogenic diseases for which there are currently no vaccines. >> flash forward to 2019 when the team in wuhan began to investigate the strange new virus. the genetic sequence of the virus was mapped fairly quickly. she compared it to a database of 500 coronaviruses previously identified by ecohealth alliances. there was a max. it became sars kv 2. the virus that calls covid-19. called covid-19 because it emerge in the 2019. it was 92% similar from a virus taken from a horseshoe bat in 2013. >> so what does that mean exactly? >> well, 96% is a different virus. so it's a bit like the difference between us and chimpanzees. what it tells us is where the

virus probably came from, it means sars covid 2 probably came from bats and probably southern china. >> wuhan is 1,000 miles away from the southern sub tropical regions of w the province where they have the greatest risk of jumping from animals to humans. >> most of the viruses had been in southern china and wuhan is in central china. when she first found out there was a coronavirus outbreak in wuhan, she did initially wonder, is there some chance that it could have come from her lab? >> the wuhan institute of virology is just a few miles from where many of the first cases were reported. >> the doctor was facing this mounding pressure. that's very alarming, particularly for those who work within that lab. >> she and her colleagues immediately isolated the virus, sequentialed it, tested its behavior, and she was very relieved when she discovered

that it didn't come from their laboratory. this virus had never been seen anywhere in the world. >> as her team raced to find answers, the disease was spreading fast. >> when the chinese minister of health announced that community spread was rampant in wuhan, and that asymptomatic spread was during, that meant the disease was out of control. >> the chinese government. they traced the source of the new virus to the western edge of a seafood market in wuhan where wild animals were being sold and slaughtered for food and medicine. >> i can't think of a better place to be a virus than a wet market. >> 16 years before the wuhan outbreak, animal traders caught the original sars virus also in a wildlife market. >> the viruses take hold, they swap around, and then people come and breathe it in and get exposed to it. that's how viruses spill over.

>> in wuhan, the initial cluster of 41 cases of severe pneumonia, about half those patients had been to that market or worked in that market or had some degree of contact with it. >> the chinese government shut down the market. early on, tried to keep information from spreading. communicating little about the early cases. >> not only was it shut down, it was also cord onlied off. you had police at nearly every corner. >> months later, the chinese centers for disease control and prevention announce that had while the new virus was found in several locations in the wuhan market, all the animals they sampled tested negative. since then other theories about the possible source of the virus have emerged. >> one of the their business circulated baltimore this originated from a wildlife trammer. somebody who has brought in one of these wild creatures of the market for sale. >> the only information we have from the investigation of the

market was that environmental samples were collected and of about 580 samples collected, about 37 of them came back positive for sars covid 2. >> dr. epstein says the jury is still out on whether the wuhan market is ground zero for covid-19. but he agrees, they are the breeding grounds for the next disaster waiting to happen. >> why wouldn't china just shut down markets that are selling exotic species of animals? >> the population of southern china has been doing this 5,000 years. you don't just close it down overnight. en you know, weeds are low down little scoundrels. draw the line with roundup. the sure shot wand extends with a protective shield to target weeds precisely and kill them right down to the root. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years.

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a very small subset of horseshoe bats all named for the shape of their noses. there are actually dozens of varieties of horseshoe bats living in a number places, including the temperate regions of africa, asia and europe. in fact there's incredible variety among bat species. they can be found all around the world and every continent except antarctica. however, the unique abilities of bats makes them tough to contends with when it comes to disease. they're the only mammal capable of actually flying, so they can easily fli spread viruss to other animals in other communities. >> some migrate thousands of miles, and hence the virus that's they carry traffic along those migratory routes. >> and though some of the pathogens bats play host to can make them sick, like rabies, they have the unique ability to host and withstand some viruses

without getting sick. >> understanding how bats co-exist with diseases is very critical. they have a very unique relationship with path jens generally. they have a unique biology and it allows them to co-exist in different ways. >> there are various theories about why that is. it might have to do with how long bats have been around. >> bats are an ancient species. they have been on planet earth a long time and that means they've had a long history of being exposed and adapting to viruses in nature. >> another theory involves their body temperatures. >> a lot of people have come up with these article chair solutions. like maybe it is because they fly and when they fly, their body temperature gets higher and it is like a fehr and that gives them more ability to handle viruses than other animals would. >> he is a biologist and tv host

who did his ph.d. work on bats. >> when a virus gets into a human and a human responds by getting a fever which is effective against a lot of viruses, it doesn't work on the bats because they're used to warm temperatures. >> so if a virus is already used to a high temperature because of bats, that rising of the fever in a human may not be effective to kill off this virus. >> exactly. >> some bats have the ability to drop their body temperatures very low in the winter. so perhaps that also helps their unique immune systems. normally, the pathogens stay hidden in bats' bodies and they don't make the jump to humans. so how do humans get infected? that's what is known as zoonotic spillover when diseases cross from animals to people. sometimes it goes from an animal to a human and then transmission going forward is human to human.

that's called community spread. >> perhaps the best exam of that would be hiv. the transmission happened from primates to humans many years ago and now it is transmitted human to human. >> covid-19 is another example. but you can also have a disease that stays in a particular type of animal which then acts as a reservoir. in that case, humans are usually infected by an animal, not another person, like with rabies. >> sometimes viruss are carried by mosquitos. a mosquito might bite an animal which carries that virus and then bite a person and transmit it like flying syringes. >> no matter how a disease makes the transition from wildlife to humans, one thing is consistent. there has to be contact. >> oftentimes it is through indirect or accidental exposure. an animal that is infected may contaminate food or water people

are eating and that's how they get exposed. >> with these big open markets, there is a lot of people so there is is a very conductive environment. >> it is a opportunity for animals that might have never have contact with each other in the wild, being artificially being brought into a highly dense and unhygienic situation. >> how do things spread from bats to either humans or other animals? through droppings or -- >> it probably varies from one case to another. >> typically, bats shed viruss the same way humans do. in saliva, urine and feces. if a bat is highly stressed and sick, does it shed more virus? >> absolutely. that's one of the issues with these wet markets. for bats, they have coronavirus that's they've adapted to and they're totally fine. you put them in a wet market situation. they get sick, they get stressed, they succumb. just like you if you work too hard and you come down with that

flu. the bats get overworked. >> sometimes with the spillover there can be an intermediary animal. so bats transmit to another species and then species transmits to humans. in the case of covid-19, as of now, no one can say for sure how it ended up in people. >> all the evidence we have suggests this was a virus that originated in bats and made its way into people through a natural process. >> but at this point, the greatest risk getting covid-19 is from other humans. not bats. >> really, what matters is the way that we interact with bats. most epidemics are driven by human behavior. it doesn't matter that these viruses are happily existing in a wild animal in the middle of a forest. when people enkroex only environment, we're creating opportunity for a bat virus to get into people. hey picked the wrong getaway driver. they're going to be paying for this for a long time. they will, but with accident forgiveness

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they account for approximately 20% of all the world's mammal species. how many species of bats are there in 1421 is the latest count. but we add at least 20 new species every year. >> so there are still species of bats that have never been -- >> oh, yeah. absolutely. >> nancy simmons is the curator

in charge of ma'amology at the museum of natural history. >> why are bats nocturnal? >> well, the thought is that actually, the ancestors of all mammals are all nocturnal. small animals scurrying around in the age of dinosaurs. it gave them access to resources that other animals like dinosaurs couldn't use. so bats basically never gave up that lifestyle. whereas the ancestors of us gave it up to be duurnal. >> but working at night it helps the bats how? >> if you think about what the animals are that are active in the air, during the day, it's birds. and by being active at night, bats are not competing directly with birds. so the bats basically fulfill

all the same ecological roles that birds do, only they do it at night. >> bats are unique mammals. though structurally in some ways they're similar to humans. >> so bats have four limbs. two of them are taxed to the wings. >> two of them are the wings. yes. they have all the same bones. the upper article, the forearms, the wrist bones, and then the bones that support the end of the wing are long finger and hand bones. >> bats' living and eating habits vary widely across the 4121 species that exist. there are some that ooms roost in trees, others you understand leaves, some in caves. some bats eat insects, others, fruit or even fish and frogs. these species, some of them are living right next on each other. >> absolutely. one square mile of rain forest in for instance the brazilian

amazon, would have 100 species of bat. >> the smallest bat in the world, it is this tiny thing that thailand that weighs less than a penny. the biggest bat in the world has more than a six-foot wing span. there is a bat that lives in the cloud forests of ecuador that has the longest tongue of any mammal. it has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of its body. if you stick your arm straight out in front of and you imagine your tongue could touch your fingers, it is three times that long so it can get into a flower to pollinate. >> so relative to its body size, if i stick my arm out, if my tongue could be to the end of my arm, this bat's tongue would go two more arms? >> that's right. >> there are a number of cute bats including one dubbed the panda bat. and another, tube nosed bat,

discovered in 2017 which made news for its resemblance to the former hair style of in sync's lance bass. >> there's the honduran white bat which looks like a cotton ball. you have your flying foxes that look like puppies but then you have some really ugly bats like wrinkle face bats. i like the ugly bats more than the cute bats. >> a bat that only a mother and dan can love. >> blood feeding bats, or vampire bats do exist. but they're only about .2% of all bat species. they live in central and south america and prey on the blood of birds, pigs and cattle. >> vampire bats are super weird among bats. they sneak up on a cow. they put their face up against the cow. they have heat sensors on their nose to tell where the blood is close to the consistent. they shave the area with their teeth before they cut.

they lick the area to clean and it then they make a divot and they put their jaw in and they lick and drink and pee. it is completely creamy. who else does that? >> i'll tell you who else. a serial killer does that. however, vampire bats don't kill their victims. they just act like a mammal sized parasite. i've heard you say that the weirdness of bats was scientifically interesting to you. the faces of bats is a case of it. if you take a bat that has a weird animal on its nose. you think that's a strange looking adornment, it turns out a lot of bats have food in their mouth when's they're trying to echo locate and it is hard to shout when you have food in your mouth so they hum. that weird animal points the echo location sound where they want it to go. >> most bats navigate and hundred for food in the dark

using echo location in which they emit sound from their nose and mouth and then listen for the echo that comes back to create a mind ma'am of their surroundings. their often oversize ears also help. some have such sensitive hearing, they can detect the sound of an insect landing on a leaf. are bats social animals? >> it depends on the species. some spend their whole lives pretty much alone. other bats will mate for life. you have some species where there is a male and a harem of females. he gets to mate with all of them but they have their own likings in mind so they'll sometimes cheat with nearby males from other colonies. there's a whole soap opera going on when it comes to mating. by the way, bat mothers are excellent mothers. imagine having a baby that weighed a quarter of what you weighed, and then the baby holds on to the mother's nipple with its teeth while she flies around. i weigh about 200 pounds.

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in north america alone there

are 46 different species of bats. most of which are small insect eating varieties like the big brown bat and the little brown bat. in the south eastern parts of the united states, in particular, texas, there's an abundance of one species. the mexican free tail bat. that bracken cave outside san antonio is believed to be home to the single largest colony of bats in the world. >> every year during the spring and summer, i think there are something like 30 million bats in the cave. >> in the cave? >> in the cave. there are so many bats that the local weather stations use their doppler radar. they can see the cloud of bats coming out and spreading over the landscape to catch insects. it takes hours for them. there are so many commuting basically from wherever they're sleeping during the day. >> they go the same way each time? >> yes.

>> in an ecosystem, what role do bats have? >> yes. they're a really critical, key component. for instance, insect eating bats, because they consume so many insects, they play a large role in controlling insect bomb lagss. >> a normal size bat can eat up to 500 to 1,000 mosquitos in an hour that might be carrying diseases like zika or malaria. if you're in an area where there are a lot of bats at night, you should be thankful for those bats. >> exactly. >> and that trags lats into big money for agriculture. the mexican free tail bat eat huge numbers of moths, protecting the corn crops of the region. >> people have estimated the financial impact of bats on the u.s. economy is that they're worth well over $1 billion a year every single year. >> really! >> yes.

in terms of how many pesticides we don't need to use. >> but pest control isn't the only value. they are fruit eating bats help disperse seeds and regenerate trees and plants previously cut down. and that's not the only benefit. >> bat droppings are full of nitrogen so they're good for crops and there are all kinds of stories about these caves in the united states being harvested for fertilizer and then for explosive for the civil war. >> there are also bats that serve as the only pollinators of particular bananas, mangos and even cactii. the muzzles of these are designed to fit perfectly in these blossom that's only open at night. >> agave which is used for tequila, that is pollinated by bats. >> exactly. who doesn't love tequila, right? just right there, that should be reason enough for people to love

bats. >> despite the millions of bats in bracken cave, in north america, over the last decade and a half, bat populations have been plummeting all because of an outbreak they've been fighting of a disease called white nose syndrome. >> it is a cold loving fungus when they're hibernating in the winter time. this has affected in the order of a dozen different species of north american bats. in some cases, populations have declined over 90%. >> that's huge. >> yes. it is a terrible let the to bats and ironically, it is a disease that we brought to bats. the fungus that cause this is disease is identical to fungus that naturally occurs in europe. the thought is it was simply brought over by people. it was accidentally introduced into bat caves. >> so while fighting a virus that potentially came to us from bats, bats are fighting a disease that potentially came from us.

in fact no north american bats are known to have covid-19. among bat researchers, there is a concern that humans will give covid-19 to bats. >> emerging infectious diseases can go both ways. we do know that some other animals can get covid-19. for instance, the tigers at the bronx zoo. >> for now, most research involving handling of bats across the u.s. has been put on hold because humans are potentially the bigger threat to bats. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. so it's like my streaming service. well except now, you're binge learning. for a limited time, get up to $800 when you open and fund an account. call 866-300-9417 or visit tdameritrade.com/learn. ♪

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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! for many of us, when we think of bats, we think of one thing. rabies. the threat of. virus is often misunderstood. >> it is not very common for americans to get rabies. >> dylan george is a former white house adviser for biological threat defense. >> in any gix year there's anywhere from zero to one to two people might get infected from rabies in bats or potentially from foxes or raccoons or skunks. >> if you got rabies, it was death sentence. without treatment it is 99.99%

deadly. one of the big problems in europe and the u.s. used to be wild rabid dogs. >> ancient medical experts developed a lot of odd ideas about how you would cure rabies. they used to believe that one way to stop rabies from killing you was to take a hair from the tail of the rabbid dog and inset it into the bite wound which this was where the term hair of the dog came from. >> then along came louis pasture. he had been working on a vaccine for years and eventually tried to try on it a young boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. the vaccine worked. >> most of the cases in the united states do come from bats. but the risk is low. so unless you see a bat behaving very strangely, moving around during the day in a funny way,

more than likely, the bat won't be a risk to an individual. >> okay. i'm coming. i'm coming. >> joseph spends a lot of time answering questions about rabies. because he spends every day around bats. >> there you go. oliver, oliver is more fascinated with you all. are you going to take what you want? go ahead. >> they all have their favorites, of course. >> known as new jersey's batman, he became fascinated with bats as a young boy. >> my father was a nightclub and restaurant and bar owner. so i was destined to be nocturnal. every so often i would go outside right before sundown and i would see these animals flying around the street lights. and my father pointed them out to me and he said those are bats.

>> he quickly became obsessed and passedle childhood days in the bronx zoo ogling these feared and revered creatures. >> i felt like what i was seeing was not matching the description of what people were giving me. around the world, bats are a sign of good luck, fertility, growth, everything you can think of. bats are usually the opposite of what they're considered here in america. >> as an adult, the batman game showman as the lead singer of the 80s metal band rocks. >> it was a very different world. although it definitely paralleled the bat world. we were pretty much active at night and sleeping during the day. >> then in the early '90s after danieling a lecture on bats, he decided to change careers. >> i just started getting more and more into the idea of doing something for something else other than myself. the rock star thing is a little

meg lo -- >> he decided to leave the rock world behind and start working with bats. >> when the baby bat is born -- >> he became licensed person who studies bat. and opened you the wildlife conservation central in new jersey. >> this is claudia. claudia is you shally pretty tolerant of being handled. each bat has a different personality, different behavior, sometimes even a different look to them. >> over the last 25 years as an educator, one of his goals has been to make people less afraid of bats. because of. he chose to feature fruit bats, native to africa, asia and australia. they're commonly known as the flying foxes. >> they are more attractive and more appealing to people. they look like my little flying chihuahuas, i call they will. they are much easier to use as

educational subjects, and to get people's fears reversed. >> when the wing is around the face like that, they're using their wings as ability-in blanket. >> he is part of a larger ools movement that has been taking place in the last three decades teaching people why they should be protected. not feared. >> we're all here for one purpose and one target and one direction. that's to help these animals. to help people understand why they need our assistance. they're so much like us. they are different looking, different colors, different sizes, different shapes, different importances, different jobs that they do and i keep going back to, that is really what i think at the end of the day, makes me love them so much. they are like people. when life gets back to normal, go outside and look up and go and find some bats. an entirely new feeling, the difference between excellence and mastery is all the difference in the world. the lexus es.

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every year we as a species enkroe encroach deeper and deeper into bat habitat. exposing ourselves to new viruses. with the dramatic increase in travel, rising trade, we're now capable of spreading those viruses far and wide.

scientists warn that what we have created is the perfect storm for a new pandemic. >> we are, without a doubt, going to see more epidemics like covid-19 or worse unless we change the way that we're interacting with our environment. >> the first major epidemic of the 21st century was sars in 2003. others quickly followed. 2001, h1n1. mers. then the large ebola outbreak in 2014, zika in 2015 and now covid-19. >> they're increasing in frequency. they're coming quicker. they're going to spread quicker. they're going to infect more people and they're going to cause more economic damage because we rely on a globalized economy more and more each year.

>> in a lab, researchers in berkeley, california are looking to bats to find clues on how to help humans fight coronaviruses like covid-19. >> i think in a way there is actually a lot we can learn from bats. these group of animals has been around for millions of years. how can we look at their history with viruses and think about therapeutics for ourselves. >> what is it about bats that allows some of them to host these viruses without showing any illness? >> that's the question that kara brook is trying to answer. brook is a disease e kcologist. she and her colleagues are investigating how the bats immunity keeps them safe from harm. >> i've always been fascinated by bats as host sources of infectious diseases that transmit to humans.

in the case of certain bat species, they appear to be per pel actually primed to fight viral infection. >> scientists believe that understanding a bat's immune system can help develop a human battle plan for fighting these diseases on a global scale. >> it's an opportunity. what is it about the bats' metabolism that they've got that we could use? >> that might actually hold an answer for treating the virus? >> if bats can handle thousands of different viruses, let's find out why and use that. >> brook and her team infected the cells of two bat species with two different viruses. then they watched as the viruses spread and the bat cells mounted a strong defense, different than what would happen with humans. >> when a virus infects a cell, your immune response will recruit immune cells to the site

to try to clear that infection. >> and the signal to all sorts of cells that have not become infected, a virus is here. turn on your defense system. >> and typically, this manifests as inflammation. >> in humans, inflammation, oftentimes in the form of fever or swelling, helps fight infection. too much or inflammation that goes on for too long can do more harm than good. it can even cause death. >> typically, more than half of the damage that results in disease tends to be the damage of the immune system attacking the host itself, and we call that immunopathology. >> that's actually how the disease starts. >> but bats' immune systems don't respond the same way as humans. >> it seems that bats are able to mount robust immune responses but not experience that inflammation. >> some bats species are actually missing the genes that

trigger the inflammatory process that we and other ma malls have. >> the same adaptation favor them to carry virus. >> it doesn't appear they get sick or very sick when carrying viruses that could deadly in people or animals. >> so could it help us human recite possible treatments to help us fight this current and future pandemic? >> what do you think is the greatest challenge in terms of finding a treatment or cure? >> well, to my mind, the greatest challenge is the number of unknown viruses that are out there. we think there are about 1.7 million of the type that can get into people. we've got to get ready for these, get vaccines and drugs that affect not just the ones we know about, but the ones we're discovering right now. >> bats already contribute enormously to research that could one day be helpful to

humans. they tend to live longer than other mammals their size. they're also fighting in the help against cancer. scientists are trying to understand why bats don't develop tumors. and the possibility they could help fight current and future coronavirus. >> people are working on vaccines. they're working on drugs. that's what we're looking for. i see it as an opportunity. >> many people are surprised by the physiological similarities between bats and humans and the information that we may be able to extract from that. in addition to antiaging and cancer research, scientists have been looking into the saliva of bats. scientists are looking to see if there could be blood thinning insides that would be helpful for humans.

in the meantime, researchers agree it is our job to protect these extraordinary creatures and their habitats. if we don't protect them, we're actually putting ourselves at risk. thanks for watching. good night. hello. i'm jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is demanding change. we begin with breaking news out of atlanta. violence and protesters and dozens arrested after another black man was killed by a white policeman. the facts of the case are under investigation right now. but we know that rayshard brooks, 27, was shot and killed outside a wendy's drive-thru after a struggle with police. the head of the georgia bureau of investigation has said that brooks fired one of the officers' tasers at them, then turned presumably to flee after