NEW YORK (PIX11) -- New York City Council member Yusef Salaam never envisioned himself as a politician or going to prison, though he said both were possible in America.

"I definitely did not see it coming," Salaam laughed.

He is one-fifth of the Exonerated Five and now oversees the New York City Council's Public Safety Committee.

"I see things from a different lens. It makes sense," he said.

However, it got off to a rocky start. Back in January, he released a statement condemning a traffic stop while with his wife and four kids. Hours later, the NYPD released video footage of it.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams called it a perfect interaction, and Salaam acknowledged the officers' respect. Nevertheless, Adams said such ordeals remain triggering for people of color.

The NYCLU analyzed one million NYPD stops and found that Black and Latino drivers were disproportionately stopped, at 32 and 29 percent, respectively.

"I replay that night over and over again. I'm actually replaying it right now," Salaam said.

He took issue with not being given a reason for the stop on the scene and learned from news reports that the officers took exception to his out-of-state registration and window tint.

He shares that trauma he's relived countless times stems from a boyhood road trip when his mother was stopped.

"They rummaged through the chicken, saying they smelled marijuana," he recalls.

He's also never talked about another NYPD interaction until now, one while campaigning for the NYC office.

"I said, why was I being stopped? They said, oh, cars like this have been getting away from us," he recounted.

It's a constant conversation with his ten children.

"Let your children know everything is okay, even though you do not feel okay and may become a hashtag," he said.

These life experiences led him and the council to pass the "How Many Stops Act," which the mayor and police opposed. He denied stoking public outrage to help its passage. Instead, he sought more oversight to avoid racial profiling by the NYPD, a department he still respects.

"The job that police officers and detectives do is very necessary," Salaam said.

After initially turning down an invitation from the NYPD to shadow officers in Harlem, Salaam ultimately went on a police ride-along after the law was passed. He also met with the officers who pulled him over and described the interaction as wonderful, ending with a handshake.

He claims the tint on his vehicle was never illegal and has since registered it in New York.