Michael Bumgarner Colonel Michael Bumgarner ( born 1959 ) has been a career officer in the military police of the United States Army . He is most noted for having been the commander of the Joint Detention Group , the guard force component of Joint Task Force Guantanamo , from April 2005 through June 2006 , at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp . During this period there was a widespread hunger strike in 2005 , which he helped end . On June 10 , 2006 three detainees were found dead , in what the United States Department of Defense announced as suicides . Bumgarner had other assignments after Guantanamo and retired from the military in 2010 . In 2009 a report by Seton Hall University Law School criticized the DOD NCIS investigative account of the deaths as full of inconsistencies and errors . In a joint investigation by " Harper ' s magazine " and NBC News , a January 2010 article by Scott Horton asserted that Bumgarner and other senior military personnel at Guantanamo and in the Department of Defense participated in a cover - up of homicides of the three detainees , resulting from severe interrogations at a black site outside the main camp . The issue has not been conclusively settled . Early life and education . Michael Bumgarner is the son of a career Army sergeant and his wife , in a family that valued military service . By high school , he was living in Kings Mountain , North Carolina . Although he was admitted to West Point , Bumgarner left during the first year . He joined the ROTC to help in his college education at Western Carolina University , and entered the Army after college . Career . In April 2005 Bumgarner was assigned as commander of the Joint Detention Group , the guard force component of Joint Task Force Guantanamo , under Maj . Gen . Jay W . Hood , serving into June 2006 . Hood told him to think about how to get the camp more in compliance with the Third Geneva Convention , related to treatment of prisoners of war . The Bush administration had originally classified the detainees as illegal enemy combatants outside the Convention . Bumgarner took on his new assignment in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture and abuse scandal in Iraq , which had been revealed in the spring of 2004 . When Bumgarner arrived at Guantanamo , much about the detainees ' legal status was unsettled . At the time , 530 detainees were held there and most had been classified as " noncompliant . " In " Rasul v . Bush " ( 2004 ) , the United States Supreme Court had ruled that detainees had the right to " habeas corpus " , and could challenge their detentions . No military commissions had yet been held . Hundreds of detainees were held at the camp , many since early in 2002 . Bumgarner worked to reduce tensions at the camp between the guards and detainees , for instance , supplying bottled water because of complaints about the tap water . In the summer , detainees started a widespread hunger strike , protesting conditions at the camp and , especially , demanding " fair trials or freedom . " Bumgarner was the chief American negotiator during talks that ended the strike on July 28 , 2005 . Detainees have said that Colonel Bumgarner made promises of improvements in treatment and conditions that the camp administration later failed to fulfill . On June 10 , 2006 the United States Department of Defense announced three detainees were found dead , in what were announced as suicides . Bumgarner was quoted a few days later saying of the detainees : " The trust level is gone . They have shown time and time again that we can ' t trust them any farther than we can throw them . There is not a trustworthy son of a . . . in the entire bunch . " An investigation by DOD by the NCIS cleared personnel of any wrongdoing but made recommendations for changes in treatment of detainees . It was released by DOD in 2008 in a heavily redacted form . After Guantanamo , Col . Bumgarner was assigned as the director of the Maneuver Support Center , Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate , Fort Leonard Wood , Missouri . He was responsible for developing new concepts for the Army to help protect the force . Col . Bumgarner ' s final position from 2008 - 2010 was as the Professor of Military Science for the Army ROTC program at Virginia Tech . Disputes allegations of cover - up . In 2009 , Seton Hall University Law School published a report , " Death in Camp Delta , " that was highly critical of the NCIS investigation and noted many inconsistencies in the DOD account . This was one of numerous reports which had been published by the Law School ' s Center for Policy and Research , which analyzed issues related to Guantanamo and the detainees . The report suggested that the camp had been grossly negligent , or that officers had made a cover - up of accidental death , perhaps resulting from torture during interrogation . In January 2010 , Scott Horton , a journalist and human rights attorney , published an article in " Harper ' s magazine " asserting that the three detainees did not hang themselves as claimed by DOD in June 2006 , but died under harsh interrogations at " Camp No " . This was the result of a joint investigation with NBC News . " Camp No " was described as a black site outside the boundaries of the main camp . The investigation was based on interviews with four former guards , including a Camp Delta sergeant , who had been serving at Guantanamo at the time . They said that the detainees had been taken to the medical center not from their cellblock , but appeared to have been brought from the black site . Horton wrote that Bumgarner had participated in a major cover - up at the camp , in which top officers had been involved . The guards recounted that when Bumgarner briefed them at 7 : 00am , hours after the men ' s deaths , he said the men had died because of rags stuffed down their throats , but the press would be told that the men hanged themselves . The guards were told not to contradict the DOD account . On January 18 , 2010 , Bumgarner disputed Horton ' s assertions . According to the " Associated Press , " Bumgarner stated in an email : " this blatant misrepresentation of the truth infuriates me . " According to the " Associated Press , " Bumgarner asserted he wanted to refute the story in more detail , but would have to get clearance from his superiors first .