NewsNation host Dan Abrams slams CNN for skewed special on cops: 'Greatest hits of police misconduct'

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In media news today, Whoopi Goldberg issues an apology for her comments on the Holocaust, an ‘Atlantic’ writer says Putin could have been emboldened by Biden’s ‘failure’ in Afghanistan, and a CBS host says Joe Rogan doesn’t have a ‘First Amendment right’ to be on Spotify.

NewsNation host Dan Abrams slammed CNN for airing a segment on police misconduct just days after the deaths of two young New York police officers and a Houston cop.

Thousands of police officers from around the country showed up to honor their fallen friend, Officer Jason Rivera, 22, over the weekend, and thousands more are expected to remember Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, on Tuesday. Rivera and Mora were killed in the line of duty earlier this month after responding to a domestic disturbance call, while another officer, 47-year-old Charles Galloway, was killed during a traffic stop in Houston.

The somberness of recent weeks had Abrams fuming over the timing and content of CNN's Sunday night special, "Traffic Stop: Dangerous Encounters." He blasted the network on his show, "Dan Abrams Live."

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 28: Thousands of police officers from around the country gather at St. Patrick's Cathedral to attend the funeral for fallen NYPD Officer Jason Rivera on January 28, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Abrams suggested he had hopes for the CNN's special on policing in America, only to find that it relied on skewed priorities.

"But of course it wasn't about the cops who have been killed in near record numbers and the dangers of being a police officer, no," Abrams said in frustration. "It was of course about police misconduct and bias."

"CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner explores traffic stops and the psychological, social, and financial trauma they cause Black drivers who get caught up in a system fraught with racial bias," according to CNN's description of the special.  

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Abrams said that the network whiffed on the more important news angle.

"To be clear, CNN is a news network," Abrams said. "And yet, this series is mostly a sort of greatest hits of police misconduct, even though the news of the week has been about cops getting killed."

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 28: The casket of fallen NYPD Officer Jason Rivera is brought out of St. Patrick's Cathedral during his funeral on January 28, 2022 in New York City.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Abrams also took offense to how Sidner suggested cops faced little danger in traffic stops and failed to highlight how many guns and drugs law enforcement have managed to confiscate.

"Bad officers who do bad things must be held accountable," Abrams said. "But this CNN special is basically advocating that cops with weapons no longer be involved in pulling over vehicles because it must be the cops’ fault in cases where the situation gets escalated."

The chyron below Abrams read, "Documentary Shapes Numbers To Fit Anti-Police Narrative" as he noted the network glossed over the fact that 2% of officers are injured in all traffic stops. Another chyron described the CNN special as "tone deaf." 

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A general view shows the taped off area marking the scene of a shooting in Harlem, New York on January 22, 2022. - New York's mayor called on the federal government to help "stop the flow of weapons" in the city after a police officer was killed and another wounded in a shooting.  (NYPD  |   Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)

Former law enforcement leaders have blasted the mainstream media for having a "delayed" reaction to the crime waves sweeping the country. The New York Times editorial board was also ripped for its framing of their recent  op-ed, "The Right Way to Stop Rising Crime in New York." The editors argued, in part, for New York to "make the city safer without reverting to the overpolicing, especially in Black and Latino communities, seen under previous mayors." 

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That argument, former D.C. police detective and Fox News contributor Ted Williams argued, is "dead wrong."

"The newspaper article…is wrong. It is dead wrong," Williams told Fox News Digital. "You need to flood the neighborhoods with more police officers, not less police officers."