When the person has not been caught, by all means give a full discription. When or if the person has been caught there is really no reason to add the persons race in with the story.

I will add that its a known fact that many whit.e people can not differenate between us. A black man who looks like Cord may have robbed them but the whi.te police officer is out looking for black man that looks like Akon.

I find it insulting when they don't give the race, but they use buzz words like "young men" or "youths". The other funny thing is that they will give a description of the clothes but not the race of the individual.

I have particular assumptions about the race, age, education, mental state, etc. of people based on the crime and how it was carried out. It's not just me. The FBI has "profiles" that are accurate probably 75% of the time. The same can be said for some victims. For example, if on the news I see that a woman got raped while running on the Charles River at 11 p.m. by myself, I will bet good money that said woman is under 35, probably single and works/lives by the river.

We all make certain subconscious assumptions, whether or not they tell us the race of the person. I'd rather not know than have some absurd description like Miscellaneous Black Man sketch released, having every normal looking black man between the ages of 15 and 45, 5'8 to 6'4, 150 to 300 lbs getting hassled.

As for Susan Smith, though I was 10 when that happened, I thought it was crap. Unless you're rich and they're holding your kids for ransom, or they escaped from somewhere and need a hostage, no one's taking your kids. It had to be someone she knew, a pedophile or her.

I agree with Chic Noir. An accurate description is necessary when they're still looking for the guy, but adding race to the post-arrest commentary is as unnecessary and ridiculous as saying "The fugitive, a tall, handsome man with short red hair and green eyes, was apprehended…"

Then again, from my faint memories of TV news, I seem to remember that they would generally give the name, age, and home city of the apprehended person, plus a picture if available, and that's it. (But really I almost watch the news)

As for old Susan Smith, that whole b.s. was parodied really nicely on the South Park episode "Butters' Very Own Episode".

@ Chic Noir: I agree that race is helpful (though not conclusive by itself) in identifying people. Unfortunately, it seems like too many white people don't notice details of black people enough to give a good description including skin tone. White people (in my experience) never say "light-skinned" or "dark-skinned" when describing black people, even though those would be helpful modifiers.