El Paso, Texas, police officer Christine Lynn O'Kane's name appeared on her identification tag and e-mails as C. O'KANE.
"When you put it together, it spells 'cocaine,' " said police spokesman Al Velarde.
O'Kane resigned from the El Paso Police Department on April 6, 2000, to take care of her ailing mother, the El Paso Times reported. She had a good service record, and her work file included a recommendation that she be reinstated if she reapplied in the future.
But when O'Kane reapplied with the department months later, she found it no longer supported her reinstatement.
Police management cited the "inappropriate" use of her name as the basis for their denial.
O'Kane had been using "C. O'Kane" in e-mails including a goodbye message to co-workers she sent in April 2000.
"In reading the (e-mail) header, it is clear that the intention was to refer to the drug cocaine," states an April 2, 2001, e-mail from Assistant Police Chief Richard Wiles to the department's personnel director.
It later continues: "It placed the department in a position of being subjected to public ridicule and disrespect."
O'Kane appealed her case to the Civil Service Commission on May 24, 2001, and the commission supported her position.
She was rehired in September 2001 and now works as a police officer in El Paso's Lower Valley. She has since switched to her maiden name, Whitaker.