Plaxico Burress’ career as a Giant began just as it likely ended – with bullets flying.
Cops in 2005 seized a pickup truck a car dealer had lent to Burress, after one of its impatient occupants fired shots out a window while stuck behind a garbage truck, The Post has learned.
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The shooting came just 13 hours before the star receiver played his first home preseason game with the team.
The driver of the 2004 Chevy Avalanche – described by a cop witness as a “really tall black guy, fast” – fled on foot with a passenger when a passing police car rolled up, said a source familiar with the Aug. 20, 2005, incident in The Bronx.
“We always had a sneaking suspicion that it might be him,” said a source, referring to the speedy, 6-foot-6 Burress, who in November was busted on an illegal-gun charge after accidentally shooting himself in the leg at a Manhattan nightclub.
Burress’ lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, last night said the receiver was with teammates in a training camp hotel at the time of the Bronx shooting, which occurred at 7 a.m. The Giants routinely stay at a New Jersey hotel the night before home games and players have an 11 p.m. curfew. Giants officials declined to comment on Burress’ whereabouts that morning.
The other two unidentified passengers in his four-door pickup that morning were arrested by cops patrolling nearby. Cops also recovered a silver, semiautomatic pistol that officers saw tossed from the vehicle.
Burress was never charged in that shooting.
Burress showed up at the 46th Precinct station house two days later, asking for the truck, sources said. When police refused to release it – because the title was held by a Pennsylvania auto dealer – the Giant declined to answer questions, and continued declining for weeks, sources said.
He agreed to talk to cops only after they warned that they planned to confront Burress at Giants Stadium an hour before the 2005 season-opening game.
Burress then told police he had loaned the pickup to a friend before the shooting, sources said.
Charges against the two apprehended passengers were later dropped, sources said.
The pickup truck is now at the center of a legal dispute involving Burress, 31, and the Pennsylvania dealer that is due to go to a jury trial today in Lebanon, Pa.
Burress is appealing an arbitrator’s decision that he pay $22,666 to the dealer in compensation for the pickup, which cops impounded for a year.
The dealer, Bronx native Frederick Laurenzo, said Burress’ agent in 2005 asked him to loan the football player the $36,000 Avalanche in exchange for promotional appearances and a promise that “only he is allowed to drive the car,” Laurenzo said yesterday.
Burress allegedly never followed through on the promises.
Laurenzo told The Post that shortly after loaning Burress the Avalanche, “I got a call from the New York City police that they got the car. They said it was used in a crime . . . they asked me who had my car. I checked the serial number and said, ‘That’s Plax’s.’ ”