Black Excellence: Rob Crisp
https://www.npr.org/2026/09/22/nx-s1-5973302/unarmed-911-responders-police-reform
On a recent Wednesday in Durham, N.C., Rob Crisp and Allie Craft were on a mission, equipped with snacks, bottled water and hygiene kits. They are part of Durham’s unarmed community response team, and they were looking for a man someone called 911 about.
“Our notes say we got a trespasser on a business property. He has a bunch of belongings, and he’s refusing to leave,” Crisp said.
In a parking lot on the side of a strip mall, they found the man, wearing a McDonald’s T-shirt and a backward baseball cap and toting several full garbage bags and a sofa with him. Crisp approached the man, who looked tense. He said he didn’t want anyone to touch his things.
Crisp, a peer support specialist who has struggled with drug addiction in the past, took his time talking with him.
“I can relate to not having anything,” Crisp later told NPR. After a few minutes, he calmed the man down.