What is the point of the police appealing for witnesses to a racist attack if they will not state the race of the attackers or the victim?

This is the whole text of a BBC report published forty minutes ago:

Taxi driver victim of ‘unprovoked, racist attack’

Police are appealing for information about a racially-motivated attack on a taxi driver in Belfast.

Two men and a woman approached the taxi driver on Talbot Street at about 23:10 BST on Saturday and, after being refused a lift, they became aggressive and used racial slurs.

The taxi driver, who is in his 30s, was spat at and struck by one of the men and he hit the ground and lost consciousness. As he got back up, he was hit by a second man.

The three people then made off on foot in the direction of the city centre.

‘Unprovoked attack’

Inspt Moutray from the Police Service of Northern Ireland ( PSNI) described it as an “unprovoked attack, which is being treated as a racially-motivated hate crime”.

“There is no place for hate, racism or violence in our communities, and everyone has the right to feel safe and treated with dignity and respect,” the officer said.

“The area was fairly busy at the time, as would be expected for a Saturday evening, and we’d ask anyone who witnessed this assault to get in touch.

“The woman is described as wearing a black dress, while both men are described as being of muscular build and were wearing a white shirt and red T-shirt.”

I do not know if the decision to hide the race of the victim and the suspects was taken by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the BBC, or both. Whoever it was, they cannot care very much about actually catching the perpetrators. Do they seriously think that someone reading the above who was in the area at the relevant time would have their memory jogged by mention of the colour of the woman’s dress or the men’s shirts? For any crime at all, giving a description of a suspect that leaves out their skin colour is unlikely to be productive in prompting witnesses to come forward. When the crime is a a racial attack such playacting becomes even more outrageous.

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