BY TANANGACHI MFUNI, ETHAN ROUEN & LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

The 18-year-old son of a New York City cop was stabbed to death in the hallway of a Brooklyn apartment building Thursday night, police sources said.

Police found the victim, Renato Scantlebury, bleeding heavily from his wounds in the Bushwick building shortly after 6p.m. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Woodhull Hospital.

A tenant said that just an hour earlier, Scantlebury had gotten into a fistfight with two men outside the building after he made a snide comment about their T-shirts.

"He died over that?" said the stunned tenant.

Witnesses told investigators they saw two or three men fleeing from the scene at 1160 Gates Ave.

Scantlebury lived a few blocks away on Kosciuszko St. with his mother, Police Officer Lisa Wade, who works in recruitment for the NYPD, sources said.

A man who identified himself as the victim's father said the 6-foot-tall teen was an aspiring rapper who doted on his 1-year-old daughter.

"He wanted a good life for his little girl," the dad said. "He was working at a Chuck E. Cheese downtown, but he had a demo out and was hoping it would be his big break."

"He was just a good kid," the dad said.