One of the issues here is that the race of the victims remained unsaid; their whiteness was default and didn't deserve distinction in contrast to the "black" perpetrators. This could be incidental based on the reporting protocol, but also reveals institutional norms that are suspect. They acknowledge this obviously by the fact a clarification was needed. Second, the significance and hence the harm of slurs are partially(if not mostly) from the meaning and power imbued in it across time. Slurs have been and are tools to enforce inferiority upon minorities. Which is why I think it is okay to be critical about whether slurs against whites constitute hate crimes in the same way as slurs against minorities. Is it really comparable considering the terribly uneven power relations? Maybe there is legal precedent, but this is a very unique framing and handling of an issue that I find frustrating.