The father of the 18-year-old who shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at an Uvalde elementary school after shooting his grandmother in the face has apologized for his sons actions — but demanded “I don’t want them calling him a monster.”

Salvador Ramos Sr. told the Daily Beast on Thursday, “I just want the people to know I’m sorry man, [for] what my son did.”

The 42-year-old admitted that he had not seen his son in some time due to his fears about being exposed to COVID-19. He said that his son became frustrated with his COVID concerns about a month ago and stopped speaking to him.

“I never expected my son to do something like that,” Ramos continued. “He should’ve just killed me, you know, instead of doing something like that to someone.”

Ramos told the outlet that he was working when his mother called him to tell him what was going on. He called the local jail looking for his son, before realizing what had happened.

“They killed my baby man,” he said. “I’m never gonna see my son again, just like they’re not gonna see their kids. And that hurts me.”

The Daily Beast reports that “Ramos insisted that his son was ‘a good person’ who ‘stuck to himself.'”

The father of the killer said that he wished his son had just shot him instead.

“My mom tells me he probably would have shot me too, because he would always say I didn’t love him,” he said.

The seemingly MIA parent blamed his son’s reportedly drug-addicted mother Adriana Reyes for not buying him more clothes. He said that he was often bullied at school for wearing the same pants every day. The father was, apparently, not concerned enough to buy him some himself.

Ramos told the Beast he was speaking out because “I want my son’s story out there.”

“I don’t want them calling him a monster… they don’t know nothing, man,” he said. “They don’t know anything he was going through.”

The killer’s mother also made excuses for the monster she helped create.

In a Spanish-language interview she asked the public not to “judge” him because he “had his reasons.”

“I have no words. I have no words to say. I don’t know what he was thinking,” Reyes told CNN affiliate Televisa. “He had his reasons for doing what he did and please don’t judge him. I only want the innocent children who died to forgive me.”

Asked by the reporter what she would say to the victim’s families, Reyes said: “Forgive me. Forgive my son. I know he had his reasons.”

When asked what possibly reason he could have had, Reyes said “to get closer to those children instead of paying attention to the other bad things, I have no words. I don’t know.”

Father of Uvalde Shooter: 'I Don’t Want Them Calling Him a Monster....