My personal tinfoil hat theory (not that tinfoil hat tbh) for why refuse to admit they fucked up and put a photo of a completely different guy out is that they have nothing.

Which, granted, can’t even blame them. Your suspect is a white guy that’s probably on the younger side that checks notes owns a hoodie and a backpack, a description that probably fits hundreds of thousands in NYC. I’m assuming a guy that went through the trouble of putting words on the casings probably also went through the trouble of removing any potential fingerprints/dna. The fuck do you do with that? Add in the public’s seeming unwillingness to snitch even if they did know something…