Our View: No one wins in feud between Arpaio, Mesa

A couple of lessons have emerged in the aftermath of the raid by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on Mesa City Hall and the main library branch to arrest contract janitors who were allegedly illegal immigrants working under false identities.

First, Mesa was rather naive when city officials shook their fingers at a private janitorial contractor, Management Cleaning Controls, earlier this year and then trusted the business' word that it was following federal and state laws about hiring only legal workers. A former city security guard had come forward with a detailed description of a conspiracy involving a local company manager to slip illegal workers into municipal buildings under the city's nose.

We have said repeatedly local police don't have the time or the manpower to become immigration agents. But Mesa police could have referred the allegations to the proper federal or state authorities to investigate, or even invited in Sheriff Joe Arpaio despite his antagonism toward Police Chief George Gascón. Failure to make any effort to independently check out the accusations offered an unfortunate opportunity for Arpaio to embarrass Gascón and the city.

Potentially far worse, Mesa also exposed to city property to physical damage, theft or other mischief if the accused janitors turn out to be something else than poor people looking for a steady income.

On the other hand, Arpaio and his team don't deserve any gold stars for their performance. Research by the Tribune writer Gary Grado shows the sheriff's office sat on the evidence that it had about the janitors for months, conveniently conducting the raid and making a total of 16 arrests just as Maricopa County voters were deciding whether to re-elect Arpaio to a fifth term.

As we have preciously noted, the sheriff's raid brought in far too much firepower and invaded the heart of Mesa city government in the middle of the night without a single warning to Mesa officials. Deputies even lied to a Mesa police officer who stumbled onto raid preparations in a nearby city park. Mayor Scott Smith remarked that Arpaio would have been livid if city police had tried something like that at the county complex in west Mesa, and Arpaio would be in the right.

Such actions are sowing distrust and disdain between the sheriff's office and local police when these agencies must be united to cope with crime from a variety of sources in the face of shrinking tax revenues.