One Man Held the Knife, the Other Stood There: Toronto Police Charge Hung Nguyen, 66, and Colin Miller, 44, With Attempt Murder in a Riverdale Back Stabbing (August 17, 2026)

TORONTO — The detail Toronto Police put on the record Monday morning is the one that decides how this file gets prosecuted: the victim was not jumped by strangers. He was approached by two men he knew, one of them put a blade into his back, and the other one stood there while it happened.

The Service disclosed the two arrests in a release issued at 10:02 a.m. on Monday, August 17, 2026, under case number 2026-1673765. The attack itself happened six days earlier, on Tuesday, August 11, in the Danforth Avenue and Broadview Avenue area — the Riverdale stretch of the Danforth, a busy commercial corridor rather than a quiet residential pocket.

According to the allegations set out by police, both suspects fled after the stabbing and left the wounded man where he fell. He was found on the ground by a passerby, who called 9-1-1. He was transported to hospital with life-threatening injuries. The 55 Division Major Crime Unit took carriage of the investigation.

The Probation Counts Are the Tell

Nguyen faces two counts of Fail to Comply with Probation alongside the attempt murder count. That is not a throwaway addition. It means that on August 11, on the police theory of the case, he was already a person under a court order regulating his conduct — and the Crown will be able to put that in front of a bail court as a live risk factor rather than an abstraction.

The weapons counts stack in a similar way. Possession of a Weapon and Carry Concealed Weapon are separate offences from the stabbing itself, and together they describe a man who, on the allegation, was carrying a blade out of sight before he used it. That is the difference between a fight that escalated and an attack that arrived already equipped.

Two Men, One Knife, Two Charges of Attempt Murder

Miller faces the identical top count as Nguyen despite the allegation that he did not wield the weapon. Under Canadian law a person who aids or abets an offence is a party to it and is liable to the same charge as the principal, which is how a man who stood beside a stabbing arrives at an attempt murder count.

What the release does not resolve is why. Police have offered no motive, no description of a dispute, and no characterization of what connected these three men to one another before August 11. In an era when this desk spends much of its week reading about anonymous shooters recruited over encrypted apps — a pattern visible across the Toronto files and in the street-level networks catalogued in our profile of Montreal’s street gangs — a 66-year-old and a 44-year-old attacking a man who knew both of them is a different shape of violence entirely. It reads as personal, not contracted. But that is an inference, and the record does not yet support it.

What Has Not Been Said

The Service has not released the victim’s age or current condition, has not stated whether he has survived his injuries, and has not said whether either accused was granted or denied release at the bail centre. Neither man’s counsel has been identified. None of the allegations has been tested in court, and both accused are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Gangland Files will update this file when the bail outcomes become known, when the victim’s condition is confirmed, or when either matter is set over to a plea court.