Texas police wouldn't let a tactical squad of federal agents go into the school to stop the gunman, NYT reports

• Texas police prevented federal agents from stopping the Uvalde school shooter, officials told the New York Times.

• The officials said a tactical team was forced to wait nearly an hour before they went in.

• The gunman fatally shot 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School earlier this week.

Texas police who responded to Tuesday's mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school wouldn't let a tactical squad of federal agents immediately go into the school to stop the gunman, two officials briefed on the situation told New York Times.

The officials told the Times that the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactical team was forced to wait nearly an hour before they went in and shot and killed the gunman, who massacred 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School.

Speaking to reporters at a Friday press conference, Director of Texas DPS Steven McCraw confirmed this, saying that the reason police didn't immediately confront the gunman was that Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief and the on-scene commander at the time, thought the risk to the children was over.

"The on-scene commander at the time believed that it had transitioned from an active shooter to a barricaded subject," McCraw said, adding that the commander "considered a barricaded subject and that there was time and there were no more children at risk."

McGraw added: "Obviously, based upon the information we have, there were children in that classroom that were at risk, and it was, in fact, still an active shooter situation."

Police have faced widespread backlash for the delayed response to the incident, with experts telling Insider that "every second counts"  during an active shooter situation, and police officers are generally trained to work quickly to engage and neutralize an active shooter.

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