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There are a couple of reasons why race is mentioned.

Probably most often, it's mentioned when reporting incidents, because the writer is trying to be thorough in the same way he would when giving a police report. It's relevant to the people trying to catch a criminal on the loose.

And somewhat too often, it's used as confirmation bias: "They were Mexican, by the way..." confirms, in some minds, that the perpetrators must have really been bad and the writer must have been justified.

I have no problem using race when it's relevant. A BOLO alert is useless without a physical description, and skin color or ethnic type is usually (not always) one of the most obvious distinguishing characteristics. News reports that are "PC" to the point that they won't mention such important information nor show a picture, are just silly. On the other hand, I do have a problem with mentioning race when it's irrelevant, because it only serves as confirmation bias as I mentioned above.