Death of Keith Blakelock Violence and looting spread throughout England for several days, leading to five deaths, extensive property damage and over 3,000 arrests. 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
Broadwater Farm riot Police on 28 September 1985 in the mainly Afro-Caribbean Lambeth neighbourhood, sparked a second riot in Brixton. Over the next weeks and months riots broke out in Peckham, Toxteth and at the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, North London. In 1985 Letwin was then considered to be a "young star" of the Conservative Party. The memo scorned suggestions by senior cabinet ministers to set up a £10m communities programme to tackle inner-city problems by helping blacks start businesses as suggested by David Young, refurbishing public housing council blocks as suggested by Kenneth Baker and "establishing training programs for low-income youth."