Disabled Man Sues Airport, City : Burbank: The cerebral palsy sufferer contends police dragged him from a restroom and dumped him on the sidewalk in front of the terminal.

A Van Nuys man has sued Burbank Airport and the city, charging that airport police officers harassed him because of his mental disability.

Michael Shannon, 39, who suffers from cerebral palsy and has an IQ of 56, alleged that an airport policeman dragged him out of a restroom and, with several other officers, dumped him on the sidewalk in front of the terminal.

One of Shannon’s attorneys, who are from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Western Law Center for Disability Rights at Loyola Law School, said the suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is the first in Southern California to invoke the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

It seeks unspecified damages, as well as changes in the airport authority’s policies regarding training that police officers receive, so that they will be able to better deal with people who have disabilities.

“There is a serious problem when the police treat a person with a disability differently than the way they do other people,” attorney Sande Buhai Pond said at a news conference Thursday morning at the ACLU’s Los Angeles office. “They should be treated with respect, dignity and compassion.”

An airport spokeswoman declined to comment on the suit, saying it would not be appropriate to comment on a lawsuit that airport officials have not yet seen or discussed with their attorneys.

“As far as I know, no one has been served with the legal papers on it,” said Elly Mixsell, manager of public relations at Burbank Airport.

Tony LoVerme, chief of airport police, was not available for comment Thursday.

According to the suit, Shannon was attempting to retrieve his plane ticket, which he had dropped in the restroom, when the officer--whose name was not included in court papers--accosted him. Shannon contends in the suit that the officer refused to accept his explanation of his predicament, and threatened to arrest him if he did not leave the airport.

The officer “insisted that Michael did not have a ticket and called him a liar,” the suit alleged. Then, the suit contends, the officer “instructed Michael to leave the airport immediately and threatened Michael with arrest if he failed to follow the officer’s orders.”

Robert Shannon, Shannon’s father and co-plaintiff, said at the news conference that he had spent years building up his son’s self-esteem and encouraging him to be self-sufficient.

“All that I had accomplished in the years I had worked with Michael to instill his self-esteem was destroyed in 30 minutes,” Robert Shannon said.

Robert Shannon drove up to the sidewalk and tried to explain to the officers that his son has cerebral palsy and that his mild speech impediment is aggravated when he is upset, according to the suit. The Shannons contend in the suit that the police officers also refused to allow Robert Shannon into the terminal and threatened to arrest him if he went inside.

According to the suit, officers finally allowed Shannon to go to the Southwest Airlines ticket counter to exchange his ticket, his original purpose in going to the airport. Shortly thereafter, the suit contends, as a result of the officers’ “harassment, public humiliation and callous treatment” of Shannon, Shannon suffered chest pains and heart palpitations, and had to be escorted out to his father’s car in a wheelchair.

Also named as co-defendants in the suit are the cities of Glendale and Pasadena, who with Burbank are co-owners of the airport; LoVerme, airport police chief, and 20 unspecified police officers and their supervisors. Larry Zarian, mayor of Glendale, distanced his city from the suit, saying the airport authority is an independent entity that hires its own police.

The airport has 20 days to file an answer to the lawsuit. It will take about a year to get a trial date, Pond estimated.