NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Charges were dropped Wednesday (Jan. 7) against two parishioners who were arrested inside a shuttered New Orleans Catholic Church that was raided by police to end a 72-day standoff.

At the same time, a parishioner of the now-closed St. Henry Catholic Church said protesters had been working on a deal with church officials that could have prevented the dramatic police raid on Tuesday morning.

If New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes had been patient, the parishioner said, police action to remove those participating in the vigil would have been unnecessary.

Lee Eagan, who attended St. Henry before it was shuttered last October by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, said a group of vigilers had met on Dec. 31 with a pastor of a nearby parish in a bid to bring the protest to a peaceful end.

“We had a deal,” he said, that “we would need no encouragement by law enforcement to leave the church.”

Instead, on Tuesday police evicted parishioners from St. Henry, as well as Our Lady of Good Counsel, and turned over the buildings to the archdiocese.

Eagan said he felt betrayed. Several people in the crowd condemned the police action.

Two parishioners who had been charged with criminal trespass and resisting arrest after being arrested at the nearby Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church saw their charges dropped. If convicted, the pair could have faced six months in jail.

“According to the city attorney, they didn’t want to arrest anyone, but they felt like they had no choice,” said attorney Scott Shea, who is representing one of the men. “They just decided in their best interest not to pursue these cases, and obviously we agree.”

Church officials asked police to intervene and remove vigil participants at the two churches after a long-standing strategy of taking no direct action against the protesters.