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DJ Envy, who was criticized earlier this week for praising stop-and-frisk policy for getting guns off the street, says he was in New Jersey driving to work last week when a masked man rammed and shot at his car. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

After being criticized for supporting stop-and-frisk, DJ Envy opened up about a recent incident during which he says he was shot at by a police impersonator while driving one early morning last week on Route 3.

Envy, a co-host of "The Breakfast Club" morning show on 105.1 FM who owns a home in Kinnelon, was reacting to social media criticism of his comments on Wednesday's radio show, saying the violent episode encouraged him to endorse the use of stop-and-frisk by police.

Envy, 39, said that he was driving in northern New Jersey on his way to work at about 3 a.m. on Sept. 22 when an SUV pulled up behind him with flashing, police-style lights.

"Something doesn't feel right about this," he remembered thinking.

"The police light was all blue and in New York and New Jersey, the police lights (are) red and blue," he said.

He didn't pull over and continued to drive in what he called "one of the worst areas in New Jersey." During the radio show, Envy's co-host, Charlamagne Tha God, said the area Envy was talking about was Newark, but Envy declined to specify.

"The whole Newark ain't bad, but in that little bit of area, that's where crime is at one of the highest points," Envy later said. A manager for Envy on Thursday told NJ Advance Media that the incident did not occur in Newark and happened on Route 3 where the highway meets the Garden State Parkway, possibly in Clifton.

Envy said that after he continued to drive, the SUV with the blue "police" lights rammed into the back of his car. He began driving faster, he said, going from 60 or 70 mph to 100 mph, he said, before the car rammed him again. Envy again sped up until he had to slow down to go through a toll plaza.

"I look over and I could see it's not a cop," he said. He said he then braked, putting the other car in front of him. Envy said he began reversing his car when a man wearing a black mask and hoodie got out of the SUV and fired three shots at his car.

"I'm driving backwards down the highway as they're shooting at the car," he said. Two shots hit the front of his car, he said, and one hit the tire. Envy, who said he had driven backwards for about a mile on the highway, first called friends in the area, then police.

"Five minutes later, they robbed somebody else, right on the highway," he said.

"I've got five kids and a family and they could've killed me over what, a car?" Envy asked.

Envy, born Raashaun Casey, initially said he supported stop-and-frisk during a news segment the morning after the first presidential debate, where Donald Trump called for implementation of the practice in Chicago.

"I feel that had a turning point in me where I said, 'We need to get these guns off the streets,'" Envy said of the early-morning highway incident.

"And that's where your energy came from with the whole stop-and-frisk thing," Charlamagne said.

"Absolutely," Envy said. "And anything that has to get these guns off the streets, whether it's a buyback program, whatever it is, we need to get the guns off the streets."

Envy added that he had in the past been personally subject to stop-and-frisk policy.

"If I have to balance it out, I'd rather get stopped and frisked than shot at any day," he said, adding that if the person who shot at his car had been stopped and frisked, maybe he wouldn't have been shot at. He said he doesn't think that the policy, which has fallen out of favor with authorities in New York, worked "well," but believes it could possibly be altered to become a successful law enforcement practice.

But Charlamagne, who argued with Envy about the issue on Tuesday alongside co-host Angela Yee, again pushed back.

"If stop-and-frisk was a fair and balanced practice that targeted everybody equally across the board, then I could understand the extra precautions being taken, but since it's a practice that targets blacks and Hispanics, and gives the police the right to lawfully profile us, I'm not with it," he said. "And we can't just go around taking away people's civil liberties because of situations like this."

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.