"storm" the church, but police stopped those who were obvious protesters from entering. Plainclothes police officers, expecting trouble, were sitting in the pews during Mass. At the outset of Mass, O'Connor said he knew there were a number of protesters in attendance but asked for a peaceful service. Originally, the plan was a silent protest with a "die-in" during the homily portion of the Mass. When it appeared that the protest was having little effect on O'Connor, who continued on with Mass, Michael Petrelis stood on a pew and shouted, "You bigot O'Connor, you're killing us!" The cathedral then descended into "pandemonium." A few dozen activists interrupted Mass, chanted slogans, blew whistles, "kept up a banshee screech," chained themselves to pews, threw condoms in the air, waved their fists, and lay down in the aisles to stage a "die-in." Ann Northrop was inside the Cathedral and said, "I happened to be the last person carried out, and by that time, everything had calmed down and was silent. So I started saying — and it was ringing through the cathedral — 'We're fighting for your lives, too. We're fighting for your lives, too.'" O'Connor asked worshipers to "pay no attention to" those disrupting the Mass. The organist also played in an attempt to drown the protesters out. One protester, Tom Keane, took the consecrated communion wafer (Eucharist) from the priest, crumbled it into pieces, and dropped the pieces to the floor. He then lay on the floor of the church in an attempt to prevent others from receiving Communion and was later arrested. Keane's desecration of the Eucharist became the biggest news story in the days to come. Years later, Keane said he decided to act in the moment and, while in hindsight he might not have repeated the act, he felt no regret. Reaction One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested, including 43 inside the church. Some, who refused to move, had to be carried out of the church on stretchers. Only minor charges were filed, punished primarily by community service sentences; some protesters who refused the sentences were tried, but did not serve jail time. The protests were condemned by politicians and editorials in the major daily newspapers. Some in the gay community also considered that invading the privacy of worship was at odds with the gay community's arguments on sexual privacy. Mayor Ed Koch viewed it as disrespectful and