HILTON HEAD — After pointing his weapon at a group of Hilton Head teenagers, former Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Master Sgt. William “Billy” Squires claimed that the kids had a gun, a seeming effort to justify his aggressive reaction.

“They flashed a gun down here. They flashed a gun at (inaudible) down there,” Squires appeared to say to someone at the scene, pointing up the street. “When I got here, they started to attack.”

The boys and one of their mothers vehemently denied that they had a gun, a video shows.

Squires has since been fired by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office . Sheriff P.J. Tanner said in an Oct. 3 news conference that his former deputy admitted to drinking before pulling his weapon, and then declined a breathalyzer. Tanner, however, deflected questions about w

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