A week after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser very publicly and ceremoniously filed suit against a lone Mesa County sheriff’s deputy — for upholding immigration law — the AG is wiping egg off his face.

On Wednesday, the deputy’s boss, Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell, pushed back. Rowell called out Weiser, a Democratic gubernatorial hopeful, not only for politicizing the whole affair but also for picking on one law officer and not others involved in the same incident.

Rowell, whose office is investigating the matter and has disciplined the deputy and others, called Weiser’s intervention “demoralizing” to law officers and “done for maximum political effect.”

Agreed.

It was a deserved comeuppance for Weiser over his showy attempt to enforce recently enacted, reckless state policies barring Colorado law officers from cooperating with federal authorities on immigration enforcement.

The new sanctuary policies are the product of ruling Democrats at the state legislature and were signed into law over the past few years by Gov. Jared Polis. Weiser no doubt is hoping to burnish his credentials with his party’s increasingly vocal and utterly untethered fringe in advance of next year’s gubernatorial primary.

The AG sued Mesa County Sheriff’s Deputy Alexander Zwinck, a K9 officer on the county’s drug interdiction team, who had pulled over a vehicle traveling I-70 in June for following a truck too closely. As recounted in a Gazette news report, the deputy let the motorist go with a warning but then allegedly shared her information via a Signal chat used by federal immigration agents as well as Drug Enforcement Agency officers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ran a background check and determined the motorist was in the country illegally. They pulled her over and arrested her, taking her to a detention center in Aurora. She is now out on bond and back with her family in Utah.

A lot of Coloradans would say the deputy did the right thing. But even those with qualms about federal immigration policy must be able to appreciate the predicament Colorado’s law officers find themselves in these days.

A crazy quilt of sanctuary policies imposed on law enforcement agencies only can leave them bewildered about their encounters with the many immigrants here illegally in Colorado communities and on its roadways. Cops, sheriff’s deputies and state troopers need time to figure out what they may do, and when, under the new reality, as dismaying and misguided as it may be.

Rowell made clear in a news release he is in fact training his personnel toward that end.

Meanwhile, Zwinck has been placed on unpaid leave for three weeks and will be reassigned to patrol duties. The sheriff said he took “full responsibility” for the incident — and publicly apologized.

But he also rightly denounced Colorado’s publicity-craving attorney general.

As The Gazette reported Thursday, Rowell noted in his news release he had provided the Attorney General’s Office with an unredacted download of the group chat from that day, which also showed Colorado State Patrol troopers “engaging in conduct similar to Deputy Zwinck’s.”

“This was pointed out to the Attorney General’s staff with no substantive response provided,” the sheriff said. He called on Weiser to apply the law “equally to all law enforcement and government officials instead of making Deputy Zwinck an example. …This would include filing lawsuits and hosting press conferences for each state and local law enforcement officer in the group chat …”

“As it stands, the lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s Office sends a demoralizing message to law enforcement officers across Colorado,” Rowell said, “that the law may be wielded selectively and publicly for maximum political effect rather than applied fairly and consistently.”

The AG’s office claimed in a news release of its own it was investigating the involvement of others.

Our best guess is if the AG takes action against them, it’ll be piecemeal. Bullies prefer to pick on their victims one at a time.