KENNETT, Mo. —Police say Heather Ellis threw a fit, hitting and kicking officers who asked her to leave a Walmart here one night almost three years ago. She says she was the real victim, and has risked prison and possibly her chances for medical school by rejecting a plea deal and taking her felony case to trial. While the evidence is about her conduct, activists insist the elephant in the courtroom is her race. That claim has drawn national attention to this economically struggling town at the bottom of Missouri's Bootheel.