Broadwater Farm riot

The Broadwater Farm riot occurred on the Broadwater council estate in Tottenham, North London, on 6 October 1985.

The events of the day were dominated by two deaths. The first was that of Cynthia Jarrett, an Afro-Caribbean woman who died the previous day due to heart failure during a police search at her home. It was one of the main triggers of the riot, in a context where tensions between local black youth and the largely white Metropolitan Police were already high, due to a combination of local issues and the aftermath of the 1985 Brixton riot which had occurred the previous week, following the shooting of a black woman, Cherry Groce, during another police search.^[1][2][3][4] The second death was the murder of Keith Blakelock, the third police officer since 1833 to be killed in a riot in Britain.^[5][6][7]