The Texas school police chief, who was criticized for his behavior during one of the bloodiest school shootings in U.S. history, stated in his first comprehensive comments that he assumed someone else was in charge as the horror unfolded.

Pete Arredondo, the police chief of the Uvalde school district, told the Texas Tribune in an interview published on Thursday that he left his police and campus radios outside Robb elementary school on purpose.

According to the school's principal, an 18-year-old gunman massacred 19 children and two instructors behind a steel-reinforced classroom door that could not be kicked in.

Concerns have been raised regarding how police handled the May 24 massacre and why they did not engage the gunman for more than an hour, despite the pleadings of distraught parents outside the school.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that documents indicate police waited for protective equipment before entering the school, despite becoming aware that several victims required medical attention.

Arredondo told the Tribune that he used his cellphone to request tactical equipment, a sniper, and classroom access keys from the school's corridor. He stated that he refrained from approaching the door for forty minutes to avoid drawing gunfire and tried dozens of keys provided to him, each of which proved ineffective.

"I prayed every time I tried a key," he told the Tribune.

State officials and professionals trained to respond to mass shootings have scrutinized Arredondo's conduct more closely in the more than two weeks that have passed since the incident.

The head of the texas department of public safety, Steven McCraw, has stated that the school police chief, who he referred to as the incident commander, made the "wrong decision" by not ordering officers to enter the classroom more immediately to face the gunman.

But Arredondo, who told the Tribune that he believed carrying radios would slow him down as he entered the school and that he was aware that radios did not work in some school buildings, stated that he never considered himself the incident commander and that he did not instruct police not to breach the structure.

"I did not issue any orders," stated Arredondo. "I requested assistance and an extraction tool to unlock the door."