Man, what is going on?
Makes one wonder.......have they loosened the standards or what? 
While the answer is not 'yes' the issue that has developed over the last 20 years is a lack of military personnel that are coming out of the military & becoming police officers. For many years people were putting 4 yrs + in the military then going into law enforcement, when that changed the quality of officers changed. This isn't to say that only ex military make good LEO's they just contributed a significant amount of more mature individuals to it. Now with military service being voluntary & the # of military folks being lower the pool of candidates for law enforcement is lower.
I was talking with a retired LEO her in Phoenix a few weeks ago, he was telling me that the average age of officers in Phoenix is 25 to 30 & the average length of time on the force is 3 years. They are being promoted to Sgt, Lt with only 4 or 5 years of experience.
So there you have it, look around & you will probably see similiar trends in your area. It isn't that they are bad candidates as a whole, but it certainly opens the door to issues, especially when they don't have guidance by moe seasoned officers.
Just my thoughts....