The social order of things in the UK had a number of growing problems – unemployment, disenfranchisement from the political system, rising crime and rising tensions between the Police and communities of Black and other ethnic minorities, due mainly to the wide spread use of the ‘sus laws’. This was legislation allowed Police to conduct stop and searches without needing the suspicion of a crime in progress, and despite the ‘sus laws’ officially being repealed in August 1981, the stop and searches continued.
Several times during the nineteen-eighties the tension erupted into riots and civil unrest with Bristol, Liverpool, London, Birmingham and Leeds seeing very violent riots. The areas most affected were those communities where crime, unemployment and poverty were rife. The continued focus on arresting Black and ethnic minorities for sometimes petty offenses sparked angry confrontations between the police and angry young black men who felt they were being victimised and harassed.
Originally from Sunderland, far to the North of London, Keith had joined the Police force in 1980, first serving in a response team in Hornsey Police station, before becoming a regular beat officer in Muswell Hill, North London. Keith was married with three sons. That morning, PC Keith Blakelock had gone to work like so many other mornings.
PC Keith Blakelock had become the third policeman since the formation of the force in 1829 to die at the hands of rioters on the mainland of the UK.
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