[ThePadawan]

For clarification, I was talking about the police department's media speakers, who are (at that point in time) the only people that have that information.

IIRC it varies on a state-by-state basis (much like for Florida Man) which data they have to or can publish.

Point being: if the police department only publishes "43 year old female", the media can't publish race, religion, etc..

[mc32]

With ‘citizen journalists’ who get footage from Twitter or NextDoor, that information can come from alternate non official sources.

I’ve seen quite informative descriptions by people: height, build, age, color of clothes but purposely leave out another physical characteristic. I’ve also seen it when someone does include this characteristic you will find people who complain that including this information furthers stereotypes (altho when video is included it’s kind of nonsensical to say that, unless it’s poor quality or at night), but when it’s a majority suspect you’ll have comments like, oh, just another *guy. Like zero self awareness.