NEW MIAMI — At least four teen-age boys have been arrested in a plot to kill the village police chief, The Cincinnati Enquirer has learned.

        Three 16-year-old boys and a 15-year-old were arrested over the past several days in an investigation that could lead to more arrests, authorities confirmed Monday.

        Duane Pelfrey, chief in this Butler County village of about 2,500 people just north of Hamilton, said an unrelated investigation into a series of break-ins of homes and cars revealed that a group of people was conspiring to kill him. Mr. Pelfrey has been chief in the blue-collar, 1-square-mile village for less than five months, but has served on the New Miami force since late 1993.

        “Over the years, I've been threatened many, many times. It's part of the job. But when you start really getting deep into an investigation and you find out they've sat down and gone over it and they knew my routine, that's pretty scary,” he said.

        Such a situation has assumed extra impact because of Saturday's sniper-style killing death of Sheriff Sam Catron in Pulaski County, Ky., Chief Pelfrey said.

        Assistant Prosecutor Greg Stephens agreed, but said, “This isn't the type of thing we would ever take lightly anyway.”

        The scheme, he said, was “fairly elaborate.”

        Mr. Stephens said all four boys were in the county Juvenile Detention Center. He will argue for them to be tried as adults because of the seriousness of the allegations.

        “I think it potentially could have been dangerous. I think it could have gone down fairly easily,” Mr. Stephens said. “It literally could have occurred on any given day. This is a first for us.”

        The youths face delinquency counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

        One of only two full-time officers on the 10-member police force, the chief said his would-be assassins had talked about several methods of doing away with him, including putting a bomb under his car.

        But the chief said he learned the group apparently decided to shoot him to death, ending with “a shotgun blast to the face, to mess me up to where I wouldn't be recognized.”

        Police confiscated a sawed-off shotgun from one of the suspects, Mr. Stephens said, but he didn't know whether the group had planned to use that weapon to kill the chief.

        Chief Pelfrey said he didn't know why the group was apparently out to get him, although all the suspects had past run-ins with police. The chief said he was particularly disappointed that one suspect was a youth he had tried to take under his wing to help change his delinquent behavior.

        “I really believed in this kid,” the chief said.

        Krystal Murray, a village councilwoman who has supported the chief through months of debates over the police department's future, said: “It goes to show you that even in a small town like this, these guys really do put their lives on the line every day.”

        The chief, however, said he remains undaunted.

        “I'm going to stay fast, work hard and do my best to keep building a strong department out here,” he said.

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