Arnulfo Reyes was shot while 11 of his pupils were killed by gunman Salvador Ramos
(Picture: )A teacher wounded in the mass school shooting in Texas has called the police “cowards” over delays in taking action during the massacre.
Arnulfo Reyes was shot while 11 of his pupils were killed by gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, who entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in the attack last month.
In total two teachers and 19 young children were killed at the school by Ramos before he was eventually shot dead by police.
Speaking from the bed of a hospital in San Antonio, where he has undergone five surgeries and had his blood replaced twice, Mr Reyes criticised the response of police who took over an hour to stop the gunman.
Mr Reyes said he felt abandoned by police, saying: “There is no excuse for their actions and I will never forgive them.”
“You had a bulletproof vest. I had nothing,” he added.
In a harrowing interview with ABC News Mr Reyes said that he thought “it was going to be a good day” as he headed to school on May 24, the day of the attack.
He told how when gunfire began sounding throughout the school he was watching a film with the students.
Mr Reyes, a fourth grade teacher who has taught for 17 years, followed protocol and instructed the children to get under the table and act like they were asleep.
“As they were doing that, and I was gathering them under the table and told them to act like they were going to sleep, is about the time when I turned around and saw him standing there,” Reyes said.
Ramos shot Mr Reyes twice, including once in the lung, dropping him to the ground. Then he sprayed bullets indiscriminately at the 10- and 11-year-old students in the classroom, as well as children in an adjacent room.
As he lay near his desk, he could hear police who had rushed into the school only minutes behind the attacker.
But it took over an hour before police stormed the classroom and killed him.
“I prayed and prayed that I wouldn’t hear none of my students talk,” Mr Reyes said, adding that he believed he was going to die.
“One of the students from the other classroom was yelling, ‘Officer we’re in here. We’re in here,’” he continued.
“But they had already left. Then he [the killer] got up from behind my desk and he went over there and he began shooting again.”
After conflicting information was given in the aftermath of the shooting, police have now confirmed the killer was holed up in the classroom for 77 minutes before police breached the door.
Uvalde police have faced heavy criticism for the delay.
During the attack, children frantically called 911 to report multiple gunshot victims. Worried parents also tried to rush in, as police physically prevented them from entering.
The US government has announced a federal investigation into the police response while local police had admitted it was “the wrong decision” not to intervene sooner.
Investigators say that messages from the children were not being relayed to officers at the scene, who were waiting for more firepower to arrive before confronting the rifle-wielding killer.
Officials say the police were “wrong” to think that the situation had changed from an active shooter to a barricaded subject, and that they had more time to prepare their response.
