[updated 7:20 p.m.] Some of the city's northeast residents and business owners are asking Mayor Bob Duffy for a return of police section headquarters throughout the city. The petition, with approximately 1,500 signatures, was mailed to Duffy on August 6.

The petition has the support of City Council member Adam McFadden, chair of the Public Safety Committee. McFadden said he wants Duffy to appoint a panel to study how to bring back section headquarters.

The Rochester Police Department moved from seven sections to two in 2004.

Duffy spokesperson Gary Walker says that the mayor has not seen or received any petitions or letters regarding the police. He has heard rumors about it, Walker says.

"But in the macro picture, crime is down, violence is down, murders are down, and a lot of this doesn't have to do with where officers are stationed and where they come from, but what they do when they get there, " Walker says. 

There are more police officers in the city now than there have ever been, he says.  

And it should be noted that we now have the lowest population we've had in many years," Walker says. "So we have a situation with more police officers for fewer people living here."