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Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (1930-) was an American New York Police Department (NYPD) detective who, in 1971, foiled the "French Connection" drug trafficking network with the help of his partner, Buddy Russo.

Biography[]

Jimmy Doyle was born in 1930 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York to a family of Irish heritage. He joined the New York Police Department and came to serve as a detective in Bedford-Stuyvesant; years of experience left him jaded and hard-boiled, and transformed him into a maverick who routinely broke the rules in an effort to fight crime. With his partner Buddy Russo, Doyle served in the narcotics division during the 1960s and 1970s, and, in 1970 alone, he made over a hundred drug-related arrests. Doyle's antics were controversial within the department; he was insubordinate, rude to his superiors, and lost his previous partner in the line of duty after he departed from his orders, and he was personally racist, an alcoholic, and a womanizer. In 1971, Russo and Doyle uncovered the "French Connection" drug-trafficking conspiracy through the help of the informant Elvan Moses, the wiretapping of the mobster Salvatore Boca (having grown suspicious of Boca after seeing him drinking with drug trafficker Joel Weinstock at the Copacabana), his tailing of the French drug trafficker Alain Charnier, his shooting in self-defense of Charnier's hitman Pierre Nicoli, his seizure of Henri Devereaux's drug-laden car, and, ultimately, his drug bust against the French drug traffickers and the Mafia on Wards Island, during which he accidentally shot FBI agent Bill Mulderig. After the drug bust, Doyle and Russo were transferred out of the narcotics division and reassigned.

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