The name of the “prime suspect” was splashed in graffiti on the walls of derelict buildings, posted on YouTube and came up whenever people gathered for a chat in Croxteth, east Liverpool.

It is eight months since Rhys Jones, 11, was shot dead outside the Fir Tree pub as he walked home from football practice, and residents had complained about the apparent inaction of Merseyside Police.

At 6am yesterday the force made its move. Armed officers kicked down the front door of a semi-detached house on the edge of the rundown Croxteth estate and arrested a 17-year-old youth. Last night he was being questioned about the murder. He has been arrested twice before: for alleged murder and alleged firearms offences.

Similar dawn raids were carried out at nine other addresses in Croxteth. More than 100 officers were involved and 12 people were arrested, including the main suspect.

A 22-year-old man detained yesterday was released on bail today and another man, aged 20, arrested. Police were given a further 12 hours - until 7pm tonight - to question those arrested yesterday.

Television satellite vans were back outside the Fir Tree pub, which is now empty and boarded up. The nearby newsagent still carries a poster urging “in Rhys’s name, get guns off our streets”, but dog walkers have reclaimed the park that was once the preserve of forensic science officers searching for clues.

In the early evening of Wednesday, August 22, Rhys, an Everton fan, was killed as he walked across the pub’s forecourt with two friends. The hooded gunman – allegedly a member of the Croxteth Crew gang – was reported to have emerged from the side of the pub on a mountain bike and fired three shots. He was said to have been firing at three members of the Nogzy Dogs gang, who had strayed on to rival turf. Officers believed that the killer could have been carrying out the shooting as “initiation” to the gang.

A bullet passed through a car window, ricocheting off its path and going through Rhys’s neck. The killer was filmed on closed-circuit television fleeing the scene.

In the weeks after the shooting, the name of the “prime suspect” became common knowledge in the area. The home that he shared with his mother, sister and younger brother was raided by the drug squad the day before Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, visited Merseyside in January.

Detective Superintendent David Kelly, leading the investigation, had said in private that it would take months of detective work to piece together the scientific evidence needed to place each gang member in the Crew’s chain of command in the dock.

In February, Merseyside Police announced that officers had seized a black, long-barrelled handgun in a raid on a council house.

A second emotional appeal was made on Crimewatch UK. Melanie Jones, Rhys’s mother, urged the killer’s mother to search her conscience and hand over her son to police. She and her husband Stephen, both super-market workers, said: “The last six months have been a living nightmare. All we want is justice for our son.”

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