A 16-year-old gangbanger with a long rap sheet, including 10 felony arrests, was gunned down in the Bronx this week — but he still might not have been the intended target in the brazen, broad-daylight shooting, according to authorities and police sources.

The teen, identified as Nisayah Sanchez, died early Thursday after two men jumped out of a gray Honda Accord and shot him in the head and chest on East 187th Street near Prospect Avenue in Belmont around 12:50 p.m. Wednesday, cops said.

Police sources told The Post on Thursday that Sanchez was a member of the Reyway Crew gang, a subset of the Crips, and had been arrested 18 times — 10 felonies and eight misdemeanors dating back to May 2017.

“The gangs are eating these kids alive, and the juvenile justice system is just feeding them more bodies,” a police source said. “It’s kill or be killed.”

Sanchez was most recently busted on Sept. 5 for weapon possession, and subsequently released, the sources said. He has three other open gun arrests — one from August 2020 and two dates from March of that year, according to the sources. 

He has also been busted for assault, menacing and grand larceny, the sources said.

The motive for the gunplay was unclear Thursday morning, but a 23-year-old man who was with the teen was also injured in the shooting — and investigators are probing the possibility that the suspects may have been aiming for him and not the teen, police sources said.

Cops say two men got out of the car, approached the victims with handguns and fired off multiple rounds.

They then got back in the Honda and took off, heading west on East 187th Street. 

The older victim is in St. Barnabas Hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds to his left arm and right foot, cops said. 

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea spoke about Sanchez’s case — and the death of Jaden Turnage, another 16-year-old boy gunned down in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Wednesday evening — during a Thursday morning WPIX appearance. 

“My question is simple: How many kids have to die before we fix these laws?” he asked.

“[Sachez, who] was killed in the Bronx yesterday, has a rap sheet as long as my arm. We are not helping these kids by putting them back on the streets. In fact, what we’re actually doing is encouraging others to carry guns, because you have to, because no one is being removed from the streets. It doesn’t take mass incarceration — it takes common sense and it takes leadership and courage to say we need to fix these laws.”

“How do you have a kid, a 16-year-old, arrested in months — three separate times with guns?” Shea asked. “And I’m not talking about the times he was arrested for slashing people, or with a machete, or with a dagger, because those are all facts too. What is going on on the streets right now is the real crisis.”

Turnage was chased down a Brooklyn street and fatally shot in the chest in Bedford-Stuyvesant at about 6:15 p.m., according to the NYPD.

Another 16-year-old, Cahlil Pennington, was shot dead Tuesday in East New York, Brooklyn, the victim of an apparent accidental shooting.