SAN ANGELO, Texas — Dozens of FLDS faithful surrounded the gates of their only temple in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a SWAT team from entering it, Texas police officials revealed Thursday.

"They lined up 57 people, as we counted, around the walls of the temple. They didn't appear to be armed," Texas Ranger Capt. Barry Caver explained.

He said church members told him they did so in order to avoid being "in violation of their beliefs by not defending the temple."

"Some would kneel and pray. Some of them were sobbing," he recalled.

Texas rangers and sheriff's deputies eventually used the "jaws of life" and other tools to physically break down the locked doors of the temple Saturday night, Caver said.

Armed with search warrants and a court order to remove everyone 17 and under from the FLDS Church's ranch, officers said it was sometimes difficult to locate the children because some were hiding from them or were being hidden by adults on the compound.

"They were shuffled around houses," Caver said. "They were playing kind of the egg-shell game, and we had issues with that."

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran said he has worked hard to learn about the FLDS culture since the group moved into his county and tried to build relationships with the church's leaders in Eldorado. He believes it paid off.

"The groundwork that we've made in the last four years is what made this operation calm and successful," he said.

Investigators anticipated they would meet some kind of resistance to entering the large limestone temple. They met with the leader and bishop of the ranch, Merril Jessop, and with his lawyers to discuss the best way of doing it.

"We wanted to do it in the most peaceful and respectful way that we could," Caver said.

But FLDS leaders rejected options of leaving the doors to the temple unlocked or providing a key.

"They felt if they did that, that they'd be aiding or assisting us in the desecration of their worship place. So we had to use other means to gain entry and breach the doors," Caver said, adding that a locksmith was even summoned to the ranch, but had limited success.

He said there were beds on the top floor of the building, which has a basement and three stories, but he declined to release any more details.

While one man — Levi Barlow Jeffs, 19 — was arrested for trying to physically resist the entry, Caver said the others were mostly peaceful.

In court documents, attorneys for the church wrote that officers dragged the praying men out of their way to gain entry to the temple and said officers fired their weapons into the woods as they entered the gates.