from: http://www.stoptheseparation.org/blog/2 ... shootings/

According to the AP when a man entered an immigrant center and opened fire scared people huddled and used their cellphones to call 911 for help, but the people calling spoke very broken english and a myriad of languages causing major confusion at the dispatch center desperately trying to keep the people calm and get emergency responders and police to the scene.

The first 911 calls came in at 10:30 a.m., police Chief Joseph Zikuski said at a news conference. The callers spoke broken English, and it took dispatchers 2 minutes to sort out what was happening.from: ap report: binghampton shooting

Those killed in the incident ranged widely in nationality and included people from; China, Haiti, Pakistan, the Philippines, Iraq, Brazil, Vietnam and the United States.

While police or the FBI have yet to mention any motive officials said they believed the gunman was irritated with losing his job and people picking on him for his poor english.

This horrific incident should drive home the desperate need for us to make sure immigrants in this country can speak english and communicate clearly with everyone, the consequences of not working towards this goal of linguistic unification can be deadly in a nation where hundreds of languages are spoken.

The shooting occured at the American Civic Association which instead of providing english language instruction helps get translators and interpretors for immigrants in the Broome County NY area. One would hope that after today the group and other United Way funded agencies like it would start providing english instruction courses and encourage employers to have their immigrant employees participate to keep future issues from occuring.