Dogs_R_Us
Space Traveller
Except it backfired, didn't it. He was always going to be identified as Asian, whether Chinese or from any other country in the region. There's no way to prevent backlash on social media, that's what it does.They are naming him, they're just quoting the Chinese media in doing so because the cops haven't confirmed it.
The police avoid mentioning race/ethnicity in their descriptions to reduce misidentification and people not reporting other people because the cops named the wrong ethnicity (or the witness has a different definition - 'Asian' in the UK is specifically South Asian for example). They don't need to specify a race (particularly when there's photos), mentioning it just risks tripping things up.
The fact that it avoids inciting randoms on social media into racial profiling or just straight out racism is just a bonus.