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).
1985: The Year of the Spy the help of his wife Mary, who drove home from the desert with a dummy decoy in the passenger seat of the car, and played a recording of Howard's voice on a phone line she knew the FBI was tapping. Howard defected to Russia where the Soviets granted him asylum, an apartment, and a new identity. Howard died on July 12, 2002, at the age of 50, according to former KGB chief Vladimir A. Kryuchkov and State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher. 1985: The Year of the Spy The American media referred to 1985 as the Year of the Spy