Death of Keith Blakelock Death of Keith Blakelock Keith Henry Blakelock was a London Metropolitan Police constable who was murdered on 6 October 1985 during rioting at the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, north London. The trouble broke out after a local black woman died of heart failure during a police search of her home, and took place against a backdrop of unrest in several English cities and a breakdown of relations between the police and black communities. PC Blakelock had been assigned on the night of his death to Serial 502, a unit of 11 constables and one sergeant dispatched to protect
Broadwater Farm was superficial. The problems caused by the deck-level walkways had not been solved; children from Broadwater Farm were still under-achieving academically in comparison to the surrounding areas; the unemployment rate stood at 42%; and there was a mutual distrust between the local residents—particularly those from the Afro-Caribbean community—and the predominantly White British and non-local police force. There had been earlier riots in Brixton and in Handsworth in Birmingham, which were indicative of a period of rising racial tension, during which some police methods such as raids, saturation policing and stop and search tactics increased the frustration of some members of