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MORGAN ZALOT, Daily News Staff Writer zalotm@phillynews.com, 215-854-5928 Posted: Friday, January 16, 2015, 3:01 AM

IN THE FIFTH of a nationwide series of roundtable discussions aimed at improving police-community relations, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met in Philadelphia yesterday with local law-enforcement leaders and community members.

During a brief introduction before Holder's "Building Communities of Trust Tour" forum - a closed-door discussion - Holder, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Zane David Memeger, Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey spelled out the goal of the discussions and of President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Obama tapped Ramsey to co-chair the task force last year amid backlash in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City.

"People want good policing. Police officers need good community folks," Nutter said. "That's what we're trying to accomplish."

Since the controversies surrounding the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in Staten Island during confrontations with police - and the subsequent grand juries that declined to indict officers involved in both incidents - Holder has held similar roundtable discussions in Atlanta, Chicago, Memphis, Tenn., and Cleveland.

"One of the things that struck me [at the meetings] is not necessarily the differences that you hear expressed by people in these gatherings, but . . . their common desires," Holder said. "People want to be safe, people want to have the sense that they're being treated fairly - and when I say people, that is not only the community, it is people in law enforcement as well."

Among city leaders and community stakeholders attending were District Attorney Seth Williams, Father's Day Rally Committee president Bilal Qayyum, former Mayor W. Wilson Goode and Minister Rodney Muhammad, the newly elected president of the NAACP Philadelphia chapter.

In the wake of last month's assassinations of two New York City cops killed simply for wearing the uniform, Holder and the other leaders stressed that fostering a relationship between police and communities where mistrust exists - and ensuring the safety of officers and community members - are parallel focuses of the discussions.

"This is not a choice that we have to make," Holder said. "We should dedicate ourselves to doing both."

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Holder: Talks show that police, community have parallel concerns