Remembering Patrick Doyle

WALKER COUNTY, Ga. (WDEF) — Law enforcement agencies in northwest Georgia are remembering a drug task force commander who recently died from cancer.

Several different departments took to Facebook to honor Patrick Doyle. He was 47 years old and leaves behind a wife and son.

“Everybody respected Pat. Every Sheriff, every person that ever met that man. You are not going to find one person that will say he didn’t outwork anybody they ever met,” said Chief Benji Clift, with the LaFayette Police Department.

Doyle started his career in 1996 at the Walker County Sheriff’s Office as a detention officer. He then became a sworn police officer in 1997 at the LaFayette Police Department.

“Well we were fortunate with Patrick, when he worked at the police department he was a very proactive police officer he was a natural. He was a natural fit to go work narcotics because you have to generate a lot of the activity and Patrick, the best compliment you could give an officer like Patrick, is he was relentless,” Chief Clift said.

Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson will remember commander Doyle as a kind person.

“He was a person that could talk to someone he just arrested just as polite and nice as if he was speaking to the civic club or the Sunday school group,” Sheriff Wilson said.

People admire how dedicated Commander Doyle was to the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force.

“There are not many people that last 15 years in the drug enforcement, because it is so demanding and grueling and mentally draining. But Pat never let that bring him down. He was always upbeat,” Sheriff Wilson said.

Sheriff Wilson read a comment about how Doyle helped change lives.

“I get choked up thinking about it because there is no more powerful words than that of a young mother to say, ‘Even though he arrested me, I appreciate what he did and because of that I am still clean three years later.’ That is quite a testament,” Sheriff Wilson said.

Doyle’s memorial service will be at the First Baptist Church of LaFayette at 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

In lieu of flowers, his family is asking people to donate to his son’s college fund at the Bank of Lafayette.