The problem was the 3 hours. He already killed many people so show no quarter. I would think you would go after him like those officers did at the beginning.
How many were killed at the beginning vs at the end?
I am informed that most of the fatalities - 29 of 50 - were shot in the restroom area where the perp hid out for most of the three hours. My surmise is that they ran there because, when the shooting started, the shooting was between them and the exits they knew of, discovered they couldn't get out and hid as best they could until the perp came in and murdered them over most of the three hours.
IMO it was the delay in SWAT entry which was responsible for most of those rest room fatalities. We don't know yet whether the OPD rescued any wounded from the other areas during the period when the perp was in the rest rooms and adjacent hallway. They had the opportunity to do so.
Given the cluster-**ck that this whole thing was, the initial shoot-out period excepted, and here I include the many FBI failures, it is reasonable to suspect that some of the Pulse wounded outside the rest room areas died of what would have been survivable injuries had the OPD secured the main areas so that EMT's could enter to treat and remove them. That will have to wait for a definitive investigation, and I suspect that will be politically obstructed and delayed.
We know some things already.
The first two officers were already in the club, but off-duty. One was working as a guard. They engaged when the perp opened fire. The next three officers to enter had arrived in their patrol cars in response to emergency dispatch. The five of them together drove the perp out of the main rooms and into the back area.
The problem at that point was that access to the perp was through only 1-2 interior doors which the perp could easily cover and just gun down unarmored officers. It was appropriate for them to wait for a SWAT team with body armor and flash-bang grenades to do a forced entry through the doors. This gave senior officers their chance to screw up.
The actions of the two OPD officers in the club, and the first three to arrive, were consistent with the highest standards of duty of law enforcement officers. They saved lives at the risk of their own. Consider the FDNY personnel who charged into the burning World Trade Center on 9/11.
We'll have to wait for more reports on the exact time the better-armored SWAT officers arrived to guess at how much unnecessary time was given the perp to murder the majority of victims. They'd probably have needed their armored vehicle as well to be certain of securing the area against a breakout covered by fire if more than one perp was inside. And some of the survivors in the rest room areas were surreptitiously rescued (such as by pushing in wall air conditioners so people inside could climb out) during the long delay.
The OPD, and Orange County Sheriff, have low reputations. That indicates long-term command failure, most likely due to local political culture aka big-city politics. That is consistent with observed OPD behavior in this instance. The immediately responding officers acted with professionalism and courage. Things went south when senior officers took over.
I suspect that the latter were afraid to make decisions they might be criticized for, and seized upon every justification for delay during the interval between SWAT arrival and 5 pm. That is moral failure. Moral failure by commanders is what produces the most avoidable casualties on your own side.