Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, in his last police promotion ceremony as mayor on Thursday, promoted his longtime bodyguard from sergeant to assistant chief, leapfrogging the ranks of lieutenant and commander.

Peduto defended the relatively unorthodox move before Phil Carey was even sworn in as an assistant chief.

“Many people ask why I would promote you to the rank of assistant chief,” he said. “I would never put my integrity on the line. I would never utilize over 30 years of professional service to the people of Western Pennsylvania and the city of Pittsburgh for something as minimal as a promotion.”

He said Carey’s decades of service in the U.S. Army – including tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Africa – qualify him as a supervisor and leader and positioned him to jump rank to assistant chief.

“I had the opportunity of being with you for eight years through some horrific experiences, some incredible experiences and the day-to-day grind,” Peduto said to Carey at the swearing-in ceremony in the mayor’s conference room. “I saw a person with the utmost integrity, a man of discipline, and incredible leader and somebody who I believe can be a mentor.”

Beth Pittinger, director of the Citizens Police Review Board, called it “blatant patronage.”

“We need to put some structure into promotions and expectations,” she said. “What is this assistant chief going to be responsible for? How are we going to know that that assistant chief is being responsible? What’s the accountability criteria?”

She said Peduto pointing to Carey’s military service as a way to compensate for a relative lack of supervisory experience is disingenuous.

“The community has been voicing concerns about the militarization of police,” she said. “We’re trying to get away from the mentality of soldiers on guard in the city and trying to move toward the guardian model. While soldiers are guardians, that doesn’t necessarily just in and of itself exclusively qualify you to be a law enforcement officer.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety said Carey’s assignment hasn’t yet been determined. The president of the union representing Pittsburgh police officers did not immediately return a request for comment.

Peduto said he is “willing to take the criticism in order to do the right thing,” noting that in almost every other segment of city government, the whole of someone’s career is taken into account in hiring, not just their work within that specific department.

“You don’t ask, ‘What did you do in this department?’ You ask, ‘What have you done throughout your life?’ Except (when it comes to) the Pittsburgh police department. That has to change,” he said. “Officers within the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police should be looked at throughout their careers and to not simply be promoted by the number of years they’ve worn the police uniform.”

Pittinger said such a step can discourage lieutenants and commanders who have aspired to reach such a rank.

“Then they get this,” she said. “It’s just a morale buster.”

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