Uvalde's police chief has defended the actions of his under-fire officers who've been criticised for their slow response to the mass shooting at a Texas primary school last month.
An 18-year-old gunman opened fire killing 19 children - aged 9 to 11 - and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
A teacher wounded during the shooting told US breakfast TV show Good Morning America this week police were "cowards" for their actions and their lack of a quick response was unforgivable.
Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school police chief, made the decision to wait for nearly an hour for backup - which he later admitted was the "wrong decision."
But he defended his officer's actions, saying they saved the lives of more than 500 students and teachers from the school.
"Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children," Arredondo told The Texas Tribune.
"We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced. Our objective was to save as many lives as we could and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat."
Investigations into the mass shooting are seeking to determine how critical mistakes were made and have questioned why officers waited in the hallway for nearly an hour before entering and fatally shooting the gunman.
Among the concerns raised in the investigation is poor radio communication.
Arredondo said he intentionally left behind both his police and campus radios before entering the school because he thought it "would slow him down" and that they didn't "work in some school buildings" in the district.
He said he used his cell phone to call from the hallway of the school for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside the classroom.
Arredondo said he held back from the door for 40 minutes to avoid provoking gunfire and tried dozens of keys brought to him but one by one, they failed to work.
"Each time I tried a key, I was just praying," he told the Tribune.
Arredondo said the reason he hadn't told his side of the May 24 shooting sooner was "because he didn't want to compound the community's grief or cast blame at others", according to The Texas Tribune.
