‘Reacher’ producer reveals real-life heroism where he stopped a would-be robber: ‘Just dropped my s–t and started chasing’

The crack of the store owner’s skull slamming into New York City pavement sent writer and producer Mick Betancourt into a fury.

While visiting New York City on April 10 and staying at the boutique hotel Nine Orchard for a few days of leisure, the “Reacher” writer and executive producer and his wife Katie bore witness to a familiar scene for Lower East Side denizens: a man with a bottle of liquor in his hand — presumably a thief — being chased down the middle of a busy street [Orchard] by another man, presumably a store owner who had just been robbed.

It was late in the afternoon and the two men ended up scuffling as onlookers peered on. The store owner, an elderly man, lost his balance and was pitched backward. His head whipped into the pavement and he lay lifeless on the sidewalk as the presumed thief took off. That was precisely the moment Betancourt dropped his bags and took off after him. “Your mind just starts racing and I just dropped my s–t and started chasing this guy,” Betancourt tells Page Six Hollywood.

What ensued was a 20-minute foot pursuit through the streets of Manhattan that could have been ripped from the pages of a Richard Price novel. As they zigzagged through the streets and alleyways of the Lower East Side, Betancourt shouted at people he passed by to call the cops. In the best NYPD-slash-Long Island baritone he could muster, he instructed the assailant to get on the ground, to no avail. After each block he found himself gaining on the man.

Now, when you think of a Hollywood showrunner, a guy like Betancourt doesn’t exactly come to mind. He is 5’9”, 225 lbs and built like a cinder block. He has boxed most of his adult life and was an accomplished wrestler in high school. His childhood growing up in Chicago’s Humboldt Park was marked by grit and violence. His mother did a six-year stint for robbing a bank in Forest Park. His uncle was murdered and his grandfather served seven years for armed robbery and worked for a Chicago mobster named Fiore “Fifi” Buccieri. There is no Tisch arts diploma hanging from his office wall. Betancourt ultimately caught up to the assailant and decided to shadow him until he could find actual authorities. “I just kept telling him, ‘You just drew the wrong guy today,’” Betancourt tells P6H. “You’re not going to be able to outrun me and if you engage me physically, I will kill you. I will take your life.”

The “Reacher” writer and producer’s NYC tussle mirrored the high-octane show starring Alan Ritchson. ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection

Things turned strange when Betancourt started cawing like the wrestler Ric Flair which prompted other people watching the scene to caw back. “I would be walking next to him just s—t talking him. It was insane,” he says. They ended up on the property of a housing project where he was able to flag down a pair of New York City Housing Authority Police officers, but they were slow to move and he nearly lost the thief who at this point had entered an actual complex. He followed him inside and encountered two elderly ladies who silently nodded their heads in the right direction tipping him off.

Both Betancourt and the cops descended on the man who was then cornered and cuffed. The cops gave him a ride back to his hotel, and he was able to check on the status of the store owner who was badly injured but alive. He reconnected with his wife and collected the possessions he had dropped on the street which included his phone and a book of poetry by E.E. Cummings, which he had just bought.