Remembrance & Memorials : Cynthia Jarrett
source: 4WardEverUK Writers
published: 12 January 2024
Image Credit: Valeria Boltneva at www.Pexels.com
From all of our hundreds of Remembrance Calendar entries, we particularly feature certain cases that were of notable historical significance.
Cynthia Jarrett
On 5 October 1985 four police officers went to search the home of Mrs Cynthia Jarrett, near the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham. Mrs Jarrett's son Floyd was in custody at Tottenham police station having given a false name when found in a car with an inaccurately made out tax disc.
The visit caused panic among some of the occupants, and in the furore Jarrett’s mother, Mrs Cynthia Jarrett, collapsed. She was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
Mrs Jarrett collapsed and died of a heart attack during the search.
The Jarrett’s home was close to the Broadwater Farm Estate. The death caused tensions to mount. That period was in any case already tense. A week earlier in Brixton, a black woman named Cherry Groce had been shot by police during another raid and paralysed below the waist.
It began with a modest crowd of young men “demonstrating” outside Tottenham police station at the death of Mrs Jarrett. As matters escalated, two home Beat officers were attacked and seriously injured by a brick-throwing crowd, one of them having his spleen ruptured by a paving stone thrown onto his back when he had fallen.
Following a protest meeting where responsible community leaders proposing a motion of complaint were shouted down, a police inspector driving past the estate was attacked and had his car window smashed. A police van answering a 999 call was surrounded, attacked and severely damaged by a mob with machetes, bars and knives.
Other News:
What caused the 1985 Tottenham Broadwater Farm riot?
3 March 2014
INQUEST Case Profile - Cynthia Leonora Jarrett
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Gifford Report Chapter 4 - The Death of Mrs Jarrett pdf
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