One is that they’re required. Unfortunately due to past suits and millions in pay outs agencies train them to record everything about people, including race info. It helps in court when agencies are accused of things that may not be true.

The Department Of Justice requires race information in even contact reports. So the most trivial of encounters, like a medical encounter, gets reported and includes racial information.

In larger areas than mine, just 45 minutes from here, there’s typically 50 to 100 people with attempt to locates and attempt to check well beings on. By asking for very specific descriptors on unknown people these issues can sometimes be closed and resources freed up.

Whether we like it or not, our skin tone is a part of our description. That’s why I suggest if it happens again consider asking why such a thing matters. General recording is the most common answer but depending on the area there may be others to consider. I know sometimes things are motivated by the wrong reasons but that’s the minority of occurrences. I’ve been asked about skin color in discussions and couldn’t figure out why it was in the question until I asked why it matters.