Editor's note: Paul Jenkins is the emergency dispatcher who handled the 911 call on April 17 from the Engelhardt home in Hoffman Estates, where three people were stabbed to death. Jenkins recently wrote a letter to the Daily Herald in response to Assistant Managing Editor Jim Slusher's column about why the paper decided not to post the audiotape of the call on its Web site. The letter follows.

Jim,

I have had occasion to be presented with your Op-Ed article referencing your decision to withhold publishing of the audio from the 911 call about the incident in Hoffman Estates. Given the unique perspective of being the dispatcher who received that call on the morning of April 17th, I want to thank you for being one of the few media outlets left in the free world with some measure of prudence. As you all are obviously aware, the job of reporting the news has always been a slippery slope and no matter what decision you make, someone is going to be unhappy. Obviously I cannot speak for others, but for me and those I have had occasion to speak to about this I feel it important to let you know that we applaud your decision; not only to not publish the audio, but also for writing the article presenting both sides of the argument.

I also want to point out that none of us operate in a vacuum. I was one small piece of a machine that was brought into action to help the victims. The advantage of a consolidated dispatch center is the resources available to the first responders and the stricken parties. I was the voice on the phone, but there were many people in the dispatch center that morning who were involved in assuring all resources were brought to bear including the police dispatcher, the fire dispatcher, and the response and professionalism of the Hoffman Estates police and fire departments were outstanding. The Village should be proud to call theirs one of the most professional and prepared first responders in the country.

Words are powerful tools. It would be silly of me to say that you could accurately portray the contents of an audiotape without hearing the audio. Print lacks inflection, cadence or tone. Nonetheless, this is a horribly traumatic event, and it isn't ever going to stop being horribly traumatic for the survivors of this tragedy. Having to relive those events every half-hour on the local news does not serve to assuage their pain and grief.

Thank you again for your attention.

Paul Jenkins

Northwest Central Dispatch