Mick Betancourt, a veteran writer, producer and showrunner with a long list of credits on crime dramas and action series like the newest seasons of the Alan Ritchson-starrer Reacher, witnessed a violent crime happening in real time on New York City’s Lower East Side as if it were ripped straight from one of his scripts.
Rather than sit idly by to see how it played out from afar, he sprang into action to chase down the suspect who — spoiler alert! — ended up in handcuffs by the time the harrowing incident was over. But not before Betancourt bolted approximately half a mile (or more) as he pursued the suspect over 15 minutes, a scene that had its own ebbs and flows and ended in time for Betancourt to make early dinner reservations with his wife.
“I grew up in a chaotic and violent area and with some violence in my own house and this felt a time when I could do something about it, though I don’t know if any of the Brown or Harvard guys I’ve worked with are chasing guys down like this,” said the native of Chicago, whose resume includes work as a showrunner, writer, executive producer, director and actor. “I also don’t know what the gods have in store for me now so this might’ve been my last hurrah.”
It started late afternoon on Friday, April 10, when Betancourt and his wife were standing near their hotel, Nine Orchard, near Canal Street, and he witnessed a man sprinting past them. “I spotted a bottle of alcohol in the sprinter’s left hand, a short, stocky bottle, like Don Julio. I turned to my wife and said, ‘The shit’s about to hit the fan,’” per details Betancourt laid out in a new Substack post published on Sunday titled “To chase or not to chase, that is the question.”
Moments later, Betancourt, who turned 52 in recent days, spotted a man in his mid-50s, someone he presumed to be the owner of a nearby store where the alleged robbery took place, running after the suspect. He caught up to him and a scuffle ensued, all of which Betancourt witnessed.
“As they wrestled, I looked around and nobody was helping. Nobody jumped in — including me,” Betancourt writes, adding that he pondered the worst possible outcomes were he to get involved. “In a flash, during the standing wrestling match, the robber got a hold of one of the store owner’s legs, lifted it up, effectively whiplashing the owner from a standing position, to slamming his head into the concrete. That THUMP is an unforgettable sound. The whole block, which had been watching, gasped, said ‘Oh fuck’ or screamed. The shop owner’s body went limp, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his arms flopped out to his sides like he was crucified.”
Betancourt assumed the store owner was dead based on body language. He made a split-second decision to take action. “I didn’t want to go back to the scene and see them pulling a sheet over the guy or running caution tape around him and think I could’ve done something in that moment,” he said. So when the suspect took off running, Betancourt “gave chase” by kicking it into high gear.
He laid out the extensive and tense scene in detail, and he sprinted after the man across several New York City blocks. “God cursed me with little alligator legs, but in a cruel twist of fate and irony, he made those hairy little fuckers fast as lightning,” wrote Betancourt.
At one point, he caught up to him and screamed, “Get on the ground now!” The serious direction gave the man pause and he did slow down long enough for the men to exchange words. The suspect also seemed sure that the man was fatally injured, as he told Betancourt that his actions were in self-defense. Betancourt, who is sober and in recovery for more than two decades, tried to reason with the man as he believed he might be in the throes of addiction.
Their exchange was brief as the man wouldn’t give up and he got away again. But Betancourt wouldn’t give up. He sprinted after him again, and when he lost his whereabouts momentarily, he sought the help of two elderly women who weren’t overly helpful in pointing out the right direction. In a twist of fate, Betancourt then ran past Housing Authority police officers who assisted in the effort and eventually called for backup from the New York Police Department.
Betancourt recalled that four NYPD cars arrived on scene, one carrying the store owner, who was alive, alert and came to identify the alleged thief while pressing a bag of ice on his head. “I couldn’t believe it. I really thought he was dead,” wrote Betancourt, who was able to then give an official statement and eventually reunite with his wife, who was still outside the hotel. “When I got back to the hotel, a woman who worked there, who saw the whole thing begin, called me a hero. No, I thought, I was a coward who decided to do something about it.”
The Hollywood Reporter verified the incident with the NYPD. A spokesperson in the office of the deputy commissioner for public Information confirmed that 35-year-old Iysa Muhammad was arrested and charged with third-degree robbery and second-degree assault after allegedly stealing two bottles of liquor from a store on Grand Street. The 37-year-old man, who was injured in the alleged assault, was transported to NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue in stable condition. The investigation is ongoing.
As for Betancourt, his legs were gassed and it took a few hours to decompress, but he’s now back home and back at work on the upcoming season five of Reacher as a writer and executive producer. He worked on season four, which is expected to debut sometime in 2026. He also worked on the Amazon Prime Video spin-off series, Neagley, focused on Frances Neagley, played by Maria Sten. Betancourt’s other credits include The Purge, Shots Fired, Wicked City, Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire, Ironside, Necessary Roughness, The Mob Doctor, Detroit 1-8-7 and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
When he’s back on set, he’ll have something to talk to Ritchson about after the in-demand star recently had his own wild real-life encounter near his Tennessee home that also looked like it could’ve been ripped from one of his episodes.
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