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Notes -
I'm more sympathetic to that argument when we have months of factfinding followed by days of debate on the minutiae of the event, like in a criminal trial. We don't usually have that much detail available, so we have to use something to fill in the blanks the rest of the time.
The flow of information from the "unknown" background to the actor isn't magic, it's just not explained in the text. For a more concrete example of how background characteristics can change the events in a way that aren't reflected in a description, consider:
The end. Everything else is background that she couldn't have researched (and even the age would've been a guess). Otherwise it might change your opinion that he:
A) ...had a history of mugging, a rap sheet as long as your arm, etc.
B) ...was a culinary student heading home from class.
I think that variant A was likely justified, and variant B likely wasn't. Do you think that both are, or neither?
You seem to be saying that because Alice is being so vague, we don't really know what happened. But, it is more likely that it will turn out that Bob acted in a way that would cause a reasonable person to be in fear of her life if Bob is person A than person B, fine.
But that was not the claim I was responding to. Rather, the claim made by OP was: 1) Neely had a criminal history; 2) "Thus the marine was fully justified in using non lethal means to subdue the threat." That is simply wrong, unless the marine knew of Neely's history, which presumably he did not.
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