News & Record scrubs race from police descriptions of robbery suspects

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GREENSBORO, NC -- Why does the News & Record remove race from descriptions of criminal suspects provided by the police?

Here is how the News & Record describes two robbery suspects from a re-purposed police pres release:

Both suspects were described as having average builds and being about 20 years old. One suspect was about 6 feet tall and wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, police said. The other was about 5-foot-10, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt.

Here is how the suspects were described in the press release.

Suspect #1 is a black male, 6’, average build, approximately 20 years old, last seen wearing a red hooded sweatshirt.  Suspect #2 is a black male, 5’10”, average build, approximately 20 years old, last seen wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt. 

The police provide build, age, gender, clothing and race. The News & Record provides everything but race.

Former News & Record staffer Lex Alexander says that the newspaper's style guide dictates that descriptions include a sufficient number of details before they are published. Clearly that criterion, however questionable to begin with, was met—descriptions were published, so it can't be that. 

What benefit is derived, what value does it provide to the consumer, for the News & Record to remove race from the suspect descriptions? 

I've emailed News & Record editor Jeff Gauger a link to this post and asked him to comment.