An award-winning film editor who worked on many of Errol Morris' documentaries, including "The Fog of War," was struck and killed by a getaway car speeding from a Manhattan drugstore robbery, police and her mother said on Saturday.
Karen Schmeer was crossing Broadway at West 90th Street on the Upper West Side on Friday when she was struck by a car driven by two suspects in the theft of over-the-counter medication from a CVS drugstore a few blocks away, police said.
Her mother, Eleanor DuBois Schmeer, confirmed the film editor's death. Schmeer was an editor for Morris' documentaries as well as other works, including "Sergio," which won a best-editing award last year at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie is about Sergio de Mello, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights killed in a 2003 explosion at U.N. headquarters in Iraq.
"She was just extremely loved by many, many friends," said Schmeer's mother, from her home in Portland, Ore., where her daughter was born.
Lt. John Grimpel said the driver of the car has been arrested on a murder charge shortly after Friday's crash. Schmeer was pronounced dead at St. Luke's Hospital.
On Saturday, police were still looking for a passenger who fled from the car as well as a third suspect.
Although Schmeer's last listed address was in Boston, her mother said she was living in an apartment on the Upper West Side when she was killed.
In addition to editing Morris' Academy Award-winning documentary film, "The Fog of War," which profiled former Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara, Schmeer worked as editor on many of his other films. She also was an editor for "Sketches of Frank Gehry," directed by Sydney Pollack.
