AUSTIN -- An Austin police commander has filed a lawsuit claiming he was denied a promotion to assistant chief because he is white.

Commander Harold Piatt says he was passed over because of an unwritten practice of "racial set-asides for positions for assistant chief."

The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court and names City Manager Toby Futrell, former police Chief Stan Knee and incoming Chief Art Acevedo.

City spokesman Gene Acuna says officials are reviewing the lawsuit.

Piatt is a 28-year department veteran who now supervises the homicide unit.

He says he said he was the department's most qualified person for promotion to assistant chief last year. But the position was given to a Hispanic with less experience.

In his suit, Piatt says Knee told a group of commanders in a January 2006 meeting that he would, quote, "exercise his prerogative to maintain the racial balance" among assistant police chiefs.