controversial life and the trial that tarnished his legacy. it all started here in san francisco. a friend of the simpson family gives us his perspective on the o.j. before the infamy. >> i feel if i make it, that would be a good example for other kids. >> and what was it like to be in the courtroom for that not guilty verdict? a former kpix veteran reporter looks back on the trial of the century. >> i remember at one point we thought we were covering it too much at channel 5. if you haven't, you still have time to get outside and enjoy this spectacular day. we'll be 15 degrees cooler tomorrow and on saturday no one get out of the 50s and it's going to rain, widespread rain coming back saturday morning, much to look at in the forecast coming right up. this is cbs news bay area with juliette goodrich. >> good evening. he crossed the line from fame to infamy, an nfl star

born and raised in the bay area who became the defendant in the trial of the century, notoriously acquitted of double murder. o.j. simpson has died at the age of 76 after a battle with prostate cancer. simpson was a star running back at usc who won the heisman trophy in 1968. he played 11 seasons in the nfl, first with the buffalo bills, then the san francisco 49ers. he then became a celebrity off the field as sports broadcaster, actor and pitchman, but his fall from grace started with this sensational low speed chase in june 1994. the world watched as police pursued his white bronco on l.a. freeways. simpson was accused in the stabbing death of ex-wife nicole brown simpson and friend ron goldman. his trial dominated headlines and tv screens for months and divided the nation. >> if it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

>> not guilty of the crime of murder. >> and many remember where they were that day when they heard that verdict. simpson was acquitted in the criminal trial while another jury found him liable for their deaths in a civil trial. simpson always maintained his innocence, but wrote a book called, "if i did it." later in life he spent nine years in a nevada prison for a las vegas robbery and was paroled in 2017, but before all that simpson called san francisco home. he grew up in the neighborhood on connecticut street in potrero hill and played financial at galileo high school and graduated in 1965. he returned to visit his alma mater four years later. he went on to attend city college of san francisco before transferring to usc. our wilson walker got some insight today into simpson's life before his infamy from a friend of his

family. >> it's something when you can say two letters, you just say o.j., just say o.j., people know who you're talking about around the world. >> reporter: for timothy allen simon the letters o.j. are more than the san francisco sports hero who became notorious. he knew simpson from the time he was a child. >> i'm a native san franciscan and o.j. is maybe one of the most famous native san franciscans of all times. i've known his family my entire life. >> reporter: he says the story of o.j. simpson is one that changed this country. it was at first the fairytale success of a young man famously from the city's poorest neighborhoods. >> you might say this is what i'm trying to do now. right now i'm trying to make it. i came from a pretty rough neighborhood around here. >> it was tough. life is tough. when we say a tough community, i hope that your viewers don't

necessarily view that it's because of its zip code necessarily. >> i feel if i make it, that would be a good example for other kids out there. >> you know, not out of wealth or opulence, not with a silver spoon, but in the belief if you apply yourself, if you work hard, that you can become something great and he did. >> reporter: and then there are the other chapters of the simpson story, the chase, murder charges, and trial of the century. >> i would say maybe the trial of two centuries in the fact that it is still as vivid in the minds of those who witnessed the trial and i think this is an important point that it created an industry within media itself. >> reporter: a media frenzy surrounding a trial that would run right through america's racial divisions. an attorney, simon watched the verdict with his colleagues. >> our entire law department, over 200 people, went to the law library to actually watch

the verdict. we were families. in some cases folks were literally married, but they knew that verdict one way or the other was going to be controversial and i think people were trying to not be in a situation where their emotions could impact their professional and personal friendships. >> not guilty of the crime of murder. >> reporter: and reaction to the verdict in simon's mind, another part of a long, complicated story that has riveted the nation and challenged it. >> he was acquitted by a jury of his peers which means that he's innocent, but yet much of america and i would include and no offense to media as well, even though he was acquitted we're going to make the determination that this man is guilty and that is unamerican and if we're going to call ourselves americans, we should stand true. we should be devoted to that concept, that

construct of our jeffersonian democracy. >> reporter: long time residents might remember the simpson mural here at 17th and connecticut back in the late '80s, early '90s that has been repainted many times over. the simpson family still has several members living here in san francisco. they are currently asking for privacy. >> i remember covering the o.j. simpson trial when i worked at our cbs station in sacramento. the news today brings us all back to that time. i got a chance to talk earlier with veteran kpix reporter manny ramos. he looked back at what it was like to be inside the courtroom for the trial of the century. >> covering the trial was amazing. it was the first time -- before that you didn't really have reality tv and that began there and you didn't have wall-to-wall coverage of things. i remember at one point we thought we were covering it too much at channel 5. so we cut back on the coverage and we immediately got phone calls. >> people were actually staying home from work. they were watching it. they were glued to

the tv, but since you were there physically reporting on it, is there a moment that you recall that will always stand out in your mind, whether it's the verdict or mannerisms inside the courtroom or the goldman family or seeing o.j.? >> yeah. well, o.j. would come in and he was larger than life. he really wasn't that big, but he had a huge head. i remember everybody talking about it. he seemed to be relaxing a little more after the glove incident when he put on the glove and it didn't fit. at that point i think he thought things are going to go okay and so what really sticks out to me is that when the jury went in to deliberate, all the reporters thought well, this is going to take weeks before they come back with something and it only took a few hours. the verdict came in which struck i think

most reporters was that we were stunned people were so surprised he was found not guilty. i would think most people thought he was guilty, but covering the trial you could see that they kept putting so much doubt in the case that we weren't surprised by that, but then i was stunned how many people around the world were surprised by it. this is also one of those cases where there was a real -- you saw the real racial divide on who thought he was guilty and who thought he wasn't guilty. >> a lot of mixed emotions around the trial. it is it a conversation we're still having today. there will be much more coverage on the complicated life of o.j. simpson coming up on the cbs evening news with norah o'donnell right after this news cast. turning now to first alert weather, that's right, i said first alert. one more day of

these warm temperatures, reached 80 today in walnut creek, a great day to take the kid outside and burn off some energy at the playground. >> we're here enjoying the sun, had to get out, nice weather. he's playing with his toys and we're playing at the playground. >> but things are about to change. we are going to notice a significant cooldown tomorrow followed by rain. let's get to meteorologist darren peck to explain this first alert weather. >> spring whiplash and the difference between what we just did today and what this place is going to look like and feel like by saturday is pretty dramatic. just a little demonstration, beautiful live look out our windows. you know how spectacular this day was. we have a little fun with the format now because the daytime highs came in 45 minutes ago, a lot of 80s for inland valleys. san francisco was in the 60s. look at the rest of the inland valleys, a lot of 80s. watch what happens when we switch this. pick out your number.

when we say good-bye to today's numbers and look ahead to saturday, most of these are in the 50s, got a couple low 60s on here. most of us aren't getting out of the 50s on saturday and there's going to be widespread rain. a couple things about this saturday's system, too, we'll start out with the map put out by the storm prediction center. once again, they colored it in for the bay on saturday. so the widespread rain in the morning is the main issue, but they're telling us the entire area in green has a small chance for some more isolated thunderstorms by saturday. you look at the system as a whole when it comes in, watch the cold front just really line up perfectly. that sweeps in on saturday morning and we all get widespread rain really like before sunrise. the majority of rain from this two-day system is going to happen before sunrise saturday. when we get back together again in the complete forecast, i'll show you what that looks like and we'll discuss why even though

that's the best part of rain, we aren't out of it until sunday, more on the full forecast in a bit. >> coming our way. thank you. some other stories around the bay area, oakland port commissioners just voted in favor, in favor of renaming the oakland international airport. the airport is one step closer to becoming the san francisco bay-oakland international airport. the measure still has to pass another vote, a second meeting scheduled may 9th. the proposed change has sparked a bit of an airport turf war with sfo with the city of san francisco threatening legal action if it goes through. the oakland airport is hoping to boost recognition from people from out of town, but sfo said it will cause confusion adding san francisco to the name. the naacp is calling on commissioners to hold a community meeting on the potential name change where oakland residents can now give feedback and also saying in a

statement, "the suggestion that travelers do not know where oakland is located is disingenuous and the decision to have san francisco bay appear before oakland appears as an attempt to distance oakland from its unique cultural history that separates it from san francisco ." the naacp also added, "while some see the renaming as a simple rebranding effort," they view it as more gentrification in oakland. a semi truck tipped over on an east bay highway early this morning. it took half a day to clear up the roadway. the accident near san lorenzo blocked all lanes on the ramp snarling traffic during the morning commute. it took until 3:00 p.m. for chp to open all lanes, no injuries reported. check this out. a santa clara driver had his own solo sideshow in the middle of the night and did a series of donuts in an intersection leaving deep scorch marks into the road before driving away.

police were later able to track it down and track down the driver and impound his car for 30 days. take note. still ahead, it is a crushing blow for salmon fishermen for the second year in a row, what the cancellation of the season means for their livelihoods. >> what's the next step? where do i go? what do i do? do i have to get a land job? >> reporter: real live castaways on a remote island in the pacific, the makeshift

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salmon fishing has been banned off the california coast for the second year in a row. the pacific fishery management council made its recommendation based off of low water levels and high temperatures. our amanda hari spoke with a local fishermen about how this is impacting his life and his business. >> reporter: fishermen say they knew there was a chance this was coming after last year's salmon season was canceled. still that doesn't make the news any less difficult. one fisherman tells me that salmon accounts for 70% of his income and now that money is gone. >> what's the next step, you know? where do i go? what do i do? do i have to get a land job, you know? am i going to have to walk away from something i love? >> reporter: those are just some of the questions matt is asking himself after a federal

fishery disaster declaration is closing the salmon season before it even begins for the second season in a row. >> it's a huge impact on myself and other fishermen. >> reporter: he says after last year he has no savings. now his family is cutting back. >> instead of just going to the closest grocery store, we wait and go to like budget friendly grocery stores. getting the water to go get it. >> reporter: he's been a commercial fisherman over a decade. he bought this boat about three years ago specifically so he could fish more salmon. >> this is our salmon sticker, commercial salmon sticker, that i never put on the boat from last year, yeah, just 100 some dollars just thrown out the door. >> reporter: he says he understands why the season has been canceled and he wants to see the salmon population recover. >> basically we had a drought three years ago. salmon are on a cycle of three years ago and three years ago we had a drought. >> reporter: but san francisco baykeeper science director jon

rosenfield says it's a lot more than that. >> salmon need cold water to survive, but the state water board refused to enforce its requirements for cold river flows and so a lot of salmon died. >> reporter: rosenfield says state leaders are keeping the river flows too low and they're exporting too much water to southern california. >> the salmon fishing season was closed last year and yet the number of salmon that returned was still historically low. commercial fishermen and recreational boat operators are taking it on the chin. >> reporter: while he waits for the salmon population to recover, he's putting all his efforts into crabbing. >> since the season opened i think we've been -- i've been home probably ten days since january. >> reporter: despite difficult times he says he's not ready to give up on something he loves. >> i'm a fisherman. so i'm going to go until the ship sinks basically. i'm going all the way down with it. >> reporter: he may consider taking other people out fishing on his boat as a tour to make

some money and get by, but it won't replace the money he would have made during salmon season, but it might help him get to next year. >> this is only the fourth time in history that all commercial salmon fishing in california will be closed for the season. health officials in santa clara county are working to eliminate an invasive species of mosquito before the warmer summer months make it a much bigger problem. s of these species of mosquito were found along machado lane in east san jose. officials say if the problem gets worse, they will have to start spraying pesticides. none of the mosquitoes found were carrying any transmittible diseases, but it's possible foreign travelers could bring the virus into the area. still ahead, get ready for weather whiplash. darren has the details on our cooldown that starts tomorrow and then rain will impact our weekend

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we keep hearing weather whiplash. just how much of a whiplash of our weather are we going to have? i'm in denial still. we we have a major storm coming through, really? >> the view out the window, 83 degrees.

>> then we're like wait, what? like that? >> right. the first image i'm going to show is snow on mount hamilton on saturday. we're going from this -- that's weather whiplash, pretty quick turnaround. i'll bring in the virtual map and the forecast imagery specific for that little item that i was talking about. we're just looking at saturday and focused down over mount hamilton and loma prieta in the santa cruz mountains. watch what shows up. there's not a lot of this, but it will be cold enough to get a light dusting of snow on the peaks once again. there were a lot of storms in the depths of winter that couldn't do that and this one will be able to do it. it's not like we'll have a hard freeze or anything, but the daytime highs on saturday, most of us aren't getting out of the 50s after today 80s and this visualization i think drives home the point how the atmosphere is really about to reorient itself. you rarely get such a fine, stark divide on

this map with all the warmer air with the desert southwest and we get a nice batch of cool air. of course, there's rain in that. the system is a lot closer than it was yesterday. look at that spin. when we put the forecast imagery on it and watch it spin down the coast and take a hard left turn just as it get to our latitude like it had it in for the bay all along, it's perfect aim, like a direct hit. so we'll time out the detail. we could see the earliest showers from this by late friday night north bay, marin coast, wouldn't be a lot. you wouldn't get a lot of rain from that because the real main event for the rain comes saturday morning between like the start of saturday midnight going through 6:00 a.m., maybe 7:00 a.m. at this point. there's 12:45. watch that line. we've gotten so used to seeing that over the last several storms they've all kind of come in with this same

pattern, that well organized widespread steady. this is the point you'd get the most noticeable rain. however, it's coming while most of us will be sleeping. so the most impressive part of this storm is going to be done by sunrise and we will have gotten about a half to three-quarters inch of rain for saturday. there's that snow on mount hamilton and the north bay mountain getting from. once we get past sunrise that line moves east and we find ourselves back in the center of the storm. when we watch this, you're going to be able to see some of that rotation out there as the center of that low comes right overhead through the middle of saturday. that's where the isolated thunderstorms are. there shouldn't be too many for us. santa cruz and big sur have a much better bet to get those thunderstorms, but we're still within the range of possibility. i think the way most of the second half of saturday goes is on again, off

again showers, more time when you aren't getting rained on and we could say the same thing about sunday because the system is still in the neighborhood sunday. it's going south, but it's close enough it's throwing a few showers our way. sunday will be a lot better in terms of trying to plan things and get outdoors around the rain. it should be pretty few and far between. you still got to put rain in the forecast. on the rainfall totals, i looked at the record to pick out san francisco, the downtown station in san francisco which has a pretty long record. the record amount of rainfall for saturday's date is 1.15 inches. we're not breaking records with this, but it's close. we're going to get a little under an inch for san francisco. another way of thinking about this is for these two days combined, saturday and sunday, it's pretty much going to match what the total average amount of rain is in the month of april. it's in pretty good range for this time of year. there's

your system. look back here. we'll be done. we get into next week. daytime highs start climbing into the 70s. 70s are nice. it's not 80s, not that day out there right now, but it's going to be pretty

stranded on a small island in the pacific, three fishermen have been rescued after they signaled for help with palm leaves. the men ran into trouble after their boat was damaged. they made it to a remote island in micronesia, but their radio battery had run out. they created a help sign on the beach using palm leaves. it was spotted by the crew aboard a u.s. coast guard aircraft. the men were finally rescued on tuesday, more than a week after they were first stranded. i'd like the story behind the story. cbs evening news with norah o'donnell is next on kpix. we're back in 30 minutes with cbs news bay area at 7:00. thanks for joining us! ♪ ♪ >> orenthal james simpson not guilty of the crime of murder. >> norah: o.j. simpson dies at 76 from prostate cancer. >> if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. >> norah: the controversial legacy of the former football star who was acquitted of double murder in the so-called trial of