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 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