A brave teacher who was shot three times during the Texas elementary school shooting has called cops "cowards" for taking so long to raid the building.
Arnulfo Reyes stated that he will "never forgive" the officers for "sitting there and doing nothing for our community" during the terrible attack.
Arnulfo Reyes told ABC that he can't forgive police for delaying more than an hour to apprehend a gunman who killed 11 fourth-graders in his Texas elementary school classroom and ten others in the next room.
In interviews that aired Monday and Tuesday, Reyes, a teacher who was shot twice during the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, detailed the horror that transpired in his and an adjoining room and talks about resentment towards law enforcement authorities for not taking action sooner.
"After everything, I get more angry because ... I had nothing" for protection, such as a bulletproof vest, Reyes told ABC's Amy Robach in a segment broadcast Tuesday on "Good Morning America."
"You're supposed to protect and serve. ... There is no excuse for their actions. And I will never forgive them," the fourth-grade reading and English/language arts teacher said in some of his first public comments since the slaughter.
Authorities say the gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, burst into Reyes' classroom and an adjacent one, killing 19 fourth-graders and two instructors.
According to a schedule released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, he remained in the classrooms for more than an hour before being shot and killed by a Border Patrol tactical response team.
According to the timeline, officers responded within minutes of the shooter entering the classroom but were repulsed by the gunman's fire and were then stationed in a hallway to call for reinforcements and equipment such as body armour, even as children inside called 911 and begged for police assistance.
It was a "wrong decision" by the school district police chief not to engage the gunman sooner, Texas DPS director Col. Steven McCraw said three days later. The chief is Pedro "Pete" Arredondo.
Reyes described what happened inside the two classes in horrifying detail.
Students had attended an end-of-year ceremony earlier that day, and some had gone home afterwards. Reyes told ABC, which also aired sections of his interview Monday on "World News Tonight with David Muir," that he was playing a movie for those who stayed at school.
The students then heard gunfire and inquired as to what was going on.
"And I said, 'I don't know what's going on, but let's go ahead and get under the table. Get under the table and act like you're asleep,' " Reyes recalled to ABC.
"As they were doing that, and I was gathering them under the table and told them to act like they're going to sleep, is about the time when I turned around and saw him standing there."
According to ABC, the gunman opened fire, wounding Reyes; one bullet went through his arm and lung, while another hit his back.
According to Reyes, he could not move after being shot, and the shooter then turned his gun on the kids.
According to Reyes, officers could be heard outside the classroom, and a child in another classroom begged cops to intervene. However, Reyes believes that officers had retreated down a hallway, as reported by ABC by that time.
"One of the students from the next-door classroom was saying, 'Officer, we're in here. We're in here,' " he said. "But they had already left."
"I told myself, 'I told my kids to act like they're asleep, so I'm going to act like I'm asleep also,' " he recalled.
When the Border Patrol unit eventually came inside, "it was just bullets everywhere," he told ABC.
"And then I just remember Border Patrol saying, 'Get up, get up.' And I couldn't get up," Reyes said.
Reyes was in room 111, and all students who were in the classroom at the time of the shooting were killed, he told the network. According to The Texas Tribune, a student who survived the shooting has said he had been in room 111. It wasn't immediately clear how to reconcile the two statements.
Reyes had a message for the students' parents.
"I'm sorry. I tried my best from what I was told to do. Please don't be angry with me," he told ABC through tears.
Reyes has taught for 17 years, according to ABC. According to his district biography page at least seven of those years have been with the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.
He said that no training could have prepared him or the students for the carnage they encountered.
"It all happened too fast. Training, no training, all kinds of training -- nothing gets you ready for this," he said.
"We trained our kids to sit under the table, and that's what I thought ... at the time, but we set them up to be like ducks. ...
"You can give us all the training you want, but ... laws have to change," he said. "It won't ever change unless they change the laws."
Reyes would like the legal age to buy a gun to be raised, ABC reported. The US Senate since the Uvalde attack has discussed such a shift.
"Nobody in this world deserves this kind of pain. ... Nobody deserves this," he told ABC. "I will go to the end of the world to make sure things get changed."