OAKLAND - Nicole Henderson knew her boyfriend of four years had a history of violence against women.

And, she said in court Thursday that the violent outbursts occurred when her boyfriend, William "Mookie" Johnson, was using drugs.

So when Johnson, 45, fell off the wagon in late 2006, Henderson decided it was time to leave.

She took all the steps should could to avoid a violent encounter.

She moved away to give Johnson time to collect his belongings, petitioned for a restraining order and ignored the endless calls to her cell phone in which Johnson threatened her life.

Yet, six days after she left Johnson, Henderson, 38, found herself face down on an asphalt parking lot of a child care center, bleeding from bullet wounds in her back and left arm.

"I told him I didn't want to be with a dope fiend," Henderson said. "He told me that if I was to leave him, somebody was going to die."

Johnson, who has previously been convicted of six felony crimes including two for shooting women, faces 50 years to life in prison for attempted murder against Henderson.

He is also charged with mayhem, criminal threats, felony domestic violence and being a felon in possession of a firearm. If convicted, it will be his third strike, said Deputy District Attorney Casey Bates who is trying the case.

Henderson took the stand Thursday wearing a brace on her left arm which has permanent nerve damage as a result of the shooting. She spoke clearly and with confidence as she

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described how Johnson began using drugs and theatening her toward the end of 2006.

Henderson left Johnson on Dec. 28, 2006 after he was threatened to kill her as she drove him to work. The couple was having another argument about his drug use when he raised his left arm and pointed it at her head.

Henderson said she knew Johnson owned two guns, one of which was small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.

"He just got mad and said, 'I should just blow your (expletive) head off,'" she said. "I thought he was going to do something to me, I thought he was going to kill me."

That night, Henderson snuck out of the house and moved to her cousin's place in Richmond.

Over the next five days, Johnson continued to call Henderson on her cell phone threatening harm if she did not talk to him. She saved the messages.

"Anything can happen if you want to play hardball," Johnson said in one message that was played in court.

"I ain't trippin if you apologize but if you don't apologize, I'm going to come to your job, I'm going to check your (butt) there and I'm going to put one in you," Johnson said in another message.

Eventually, Henderson relented and answered a phone call from Johnson. She said he was polite and said he needed some papers that were in her car so he could re-enter a rehab center.

She said she thought his sister, a probation officer, was with him and so she agreed to meet him at her work, the Oakland Teacher Parent Child Care Center near the corner of East 9th Street and 35th Avenue. "He was being nice, he said, `See, that's all you have to do is talk to me and everything is going to be O.K.,'" Henderson said. "He was trying to sound in a good mood."

Henderson greeted Johnson in the center's parking lot and opened her trunk to get the papers. Johnson continued play nice, she said, and asked for a few more of his items that were in her car.

As he began shuffling through her trunk, Henderson said she felt he was purposely delaying time. All the while, he kept asking her, "So this is how you want it?" she said.

Eventually, Henderson told Johnson that item he was looking for, a fishing knife, was not in her car. He turned around and walked back to his car.

As she turned around to close her trunk, she heard a loud noise. It was followed by another and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground watching as Johnson walked back to his car and drove away.

"I just fell, I lost complete control of my body," she said. "I knew, at that point, that I had been shot."

Henderson remained composed on the stand as she told the story and showed the jury the massive wound on her left arm that was caused by a bullet.

But she finally broke down in tears when Bates showed her a picture of her wounds as she laid on an emergency room gurney.

"They did think I was going to be paralyzed from the legs down," she said.