DA Investigating Police Response in UWS Hit and Run

District Attorney Cyrus Vance is looking into the death of film editor Karen Schmeer on the Upper West Side last weekend and the police chase that preceded it, Streetsblog reported. Schmeer died after being hit by a Dodge Charger racing up Broadway at 90th Street. She was carrying groceries and was just a block away from her home.

It’s still unclear, however, what exactly preceded the crash that killed her. Apparently, three men stole over the counter medication from a CVS on West 86th Street and then sped away. The Daily News talked to witnesses who said that the Dodge was fleeing a police car, which could mean that police were undergoing a dangerous high-speed chase at a busy time of night (8 p.m.) when it could endanger civilians.

Schmeer

Here’s how the Daily News put it: “Witnesses at the scene [said] they saw the car weaving in and out of traffic going north on Broadway with a squad car with lights and sirens blaring in hot pursuit.”

And check out this comment and this comment from Streetsblog readers, who seem to corroborate the Daily News witnesses. One commenter (whose identity isn’t verified) describes the chase as “terrifying.”

We asked police headquarters whether there had been a high-speed chase prior to Schmeer being hit, and they sent us this explanation: “The police attempted to pull over the auto but had lost the auto in traffic prior the 2010 Dodge striking the victim.”

Police caught one of the men in the Dodge, David McKie of Coral Springs, Fla., shortly afterwards. McKie has been charged with second-degree murder.

Schmeer was a talented film editor who worked with documentarian Errol Morris on “Fog of War” and other well known documentaries and had won an editing award at the Sundance Film Festival. Morris wrote that “An extraordinary editor makes possible something that would not have been possible without them. Karen Schmeer was an extraordinary editor,” on his twitter page and promised to dedicate his next movie to her. (photo of Cy Vance by cyvanceforda via flickr)