COP'S E-MAIL ADDRESS DRAWS FIRE

EL PASO, Texas (AP)- A police officer's name nearly cost her her job. The
problem was the way El Paso officer Christine Lynn O'Kane's name appeared
on her identification tag and e-mails: 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.

Since being rehired, O'Kane switched to her maiden name, Whitaker.