Amid the chaos of the Vietnam War across the Pacific Ocean and the protests at home, a conflict in the Bay Area proved inevitable.

Fifty years ago, anti-war demonstrators took a stand, shutting down the Oakland Induction Center, a governmental hub where draftees were processed before being sent to the armed services. The response from authorities was swift and, at times, savage. The images from the conflict in mid-October 1967 remain stunning.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the draft was a cloud that lingered over the nation and, especially, the heads of those born from 1944 to 1950. More than 600,000 young men were drafted in 1966-67, and more than 200,000 of them were sent to the theater of war, where U.S. casualties topped 11,000 in 1967 alone.

Nationwide protests escalated, with Stop the Draft Week in mid-October 1967 in the Bay Area building into the largest demonstration of the anti-war movement.

In San Francisco, young people were urged to turn in their draft cards at the Federal Building. The Rev. Anthony Nugent summed up the feelings of the resistance: “If a young man wants to fight in Vietnam, that’s one thing. But I don’t think he should be drafted into a war he morally opposes.”

In Oakland, the week’s organizing committee announced that rallies designed to close the induction center would begin the morning of Oct. 16, stating “participants in this action should expect arrest.” An article in The Chronicle on Oct. 17 reported that while 125 people were arrested, including Joan Baez and her mother, the demonstrations were relatively calm with the group composed almost entirely of pacifists. “There was an air of ‘entente cordiale’ between the Oakland Police Department and demonstrators,” the story read. The day’s activities, however, proved to be the calm before the storm.

The headline across the top of The Chronicle’s Oct. 18 front page read “THE BIG DRAFT BATTLE” then “A bloody attack by police — clubs, tear gas and boots.” The previous day, Oakland police had faced off against at least 2,500 protesters, mostly students from UC Berkeley and Stanford University. In a turn from the relative peace of the previous gathering, violence was the order of the day.

Chronicle reporter Charles Howe provided a vivid description of the events. Demonstrators started showing up at 2 a.m. at the Oakland Induction Center’s examining station. By 6 a.m., “hundreds ringed the building, marching, chanting and singing.” A police order to disperse came from a bullhorn. Within a few minutes, police, sheriff’s deputies and CHP officers came pouring out of a parking garage.

“Shortly after 7 a.m., police made their move,” Howe wrote, “beating their way through a thin, running line of frightened demonstrators. ... Charging down Clay Street, officers squirted liquid Mace and rattled clubs against anyone who didn’t move out of their way fast enough.”

Halfway down the block, 100 demonstrators were blocking the side entrance to the station, sealing it off with their bodies. After facing off for a few minutes, “officers suddenly surged, their hard wooden sticks mechanically flailing up and down, like a peasant mowing down wheat,” Howe wrote.

Several members of the media were beaten and Maced during the melee. Among them were Chronicle photographer Gordon Peters and KGO-TV news anchor Jerry Jensen. Oakland Police Chief Charles Gain said the media had been ordered twice to clear the area. “Police had a job to do,” Gain said, “and the press were where they didn’t belong.” The journalists said they never heard a warning to leave the area.

The violent force used by police had made headlines not only in The Chronicle; this was coast-to-coast front-page news. A statement released by Lt. Gov. Robert Finch on behalf of Gov. Ronald Reagan, however, saluted law enforcement officers for their “exceptional ability” during the demonstrations. The statement read: “Their actions in upholding the law are to be commended and should serve as a reminder throughout all California that law must be obeyed.”

After the fighting, dozens of arrests and incidents of violence sprang up in the last three days of Stop the Draft Week in Oakland, but police tactics were more restrained. The Oakland Induction Center was the site of many more protests and arrests into the early 1970s, but the riots of October 1967 remained the bloodiest confrontation.

On Jan. 28, 1973, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announced an end to the draft, and the all-volunteer army era began again.

Bill Van Niekerken is the library director of The San Francisco Chronicle, where he has worked since 1985. In his weekly column, From the Archive, he explores the depths of The Chronicle’s vast photography archive in search of interesting historical tales related to the city by the bay.