ORLANDO – Orlando police are facing questions over why it took three hours for a SWAT team to storm the nightclub where homophobe Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people. 

As the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history began to unfold, an off-duty police officer working at a gay nightclub exchanged gunfire with the suspect.

But authorities chose to hold off on letting the tactical units enter Pulse nightclub, where more than 100 people were shot.

Police Chief John Mina has also admitted that some of the victims may have been hit by officers’ gun fire.

However he insisted it is a part of the investigation into the horrific attack.

‘I will say that is all part of the investigation,” Mina said. “But I will say when our SWAT officers, about eight or nine officers, opened fire, their backdrop was a concrete wall. And they were being fired upon, so that is all part of the investigation.’   

The decisions made by Orlando police made them targets for scrutiny among experts in police tactics. 

They said the lessons learned from other mass shootings show that officers must get inside swiftly — even at great risk — to stop the threat and save lives.

Authorities in Orlando say the situation changed from an active-shooter scenario to a hostage situation once gunman Mateen made it into one of the bathrooms where club-goers were hiding. 

He first had a shootout with the off-duty officer at the club’s entrance. 

Once in the restroom, Mateen allegedly called 911 and made statements pledging allegiance to ISIS, Mina said.

That’s when the shooting stopped and hostage negotiators began talking with him, the chief said.

‘We had a team of crisis negotiators that talked to the suspect, trying to get as much information as possible, what we could do to help resolve the situation… He wasn’t asking a whole lot, and we were doing most of the asking,’ Mina said.

But Mateen soon began talking about explosives and bombs, leading Mina to decide about 5am to detonate an explosive on an exterior wall to prevent potentially greater loss of life.

The explosives did not penetrate the wall completely, so an armored vehicle was used to punch a two-foot-by-three-foot hole in the wall about two feet from the ground.

‘We knew there would be an imminent loss of life,’ Mina said.

Hostages started running out, as did Mateen, who was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members. 

It turned out there were no explosives.