Picking Your Feet In Poughkeepsie!
Favorite explanations of this line?
shareI always took to mean just a threat to arrest the guy on a trivial charge.
Doyle just wants to intimidate the guy to get information from him, and let's him know he is willing to bust him for something that he just made up.
It's a reference to doing heroin. Shooting between your toes and not leaving tracks. Doyle kinds of explains it to the guy but not that clearly.
shareNot according Eddie Egan, the real life police officer Popeye Doyle was based on. From an article about the film:
The real detectives behind The French Connection's story [Eddie] Egan and [Sonny] Grosso acted as advisors to the production, including on this scene. "Picking your feet in Poughkeepsie" is a phrase that Egan would sometimes use during interrogations to disorient and confuse suspects during interrogations, with the aim of Grosso getting them to open up by asking more direct queries actually related to the case.