1985 Handsworth riots 1500 police officers drafted into the area, about 45 shops looted and burnt, and a trail of damage running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. As well as racial tension, unemployment was seen as a major factor in the riots; by the time of the riots, fewer than 5% of the black population to have left school that summer had found employment. The riots were the first of a series of similar riots across the country during the autumn of 1985, notably the Broadwater Farm riot in London which also resulted in a fatality (the murder of policeman Keith Blakelock).
Broadwater Farm riot Michael Randle, which he denied. The inquest found that Jarrett had died accidentally. No police officers were charged or disciplined for her death. In 1985, Oliver Letwin and Hartley Booth co-authored a memo as members of then-Prime Minister Thatcher's policy unit in response to Broadwater Farm in London urging "Thatcher to ignore reports that rioting in mainly black urban areas was the result of social deprivation and racism." Broadwater Farm riot was part of a series of riots sparked by the shooting of the mother of Michael Groce — both Afro-Caribbean in a mainly Afro-Caribbean neighbourhood — by the Metropolitan