Domestic Violence Calls Rise on Thanksgiving?

Article here. Excerpt:

'SALT LAKE CITY - Take some forced family togetherness, the stress of the holidays, a little alcohol in some cases and you've got a recipe that can sometimes end up in family violence.

Police say they deal with family fights every Thanksgiving.

"It becomes an emotional time for all, and it's a stressful time in certain ways," Ogden Police Lt. Scott Conley said.

Ogden police said that on Thanksgiving, they get a lot of calls about child custody disputes between bitter parents.

"We become the mediator over some disagreement or disorderly conduct of using the child against one another," Conley told Fox 13 News.

A recent study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and UC San Diego documented police calls about partner violence, taking note of particular holidays. They found a 22-percent increase on Thanksgiving; a 17-percent increase on Christmas; a 32-percent spike on New Year's Eve; and a 28-percent hike on the Fourth of July, among other holidays.

The study, paid for by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's major finding was an 8-percent increase in partner violence as a result of an upset loss in an NFL football game. The study's results didn't surprise Sheila Richins, the director of the Safe Harbor Domestic Violence Shelter in Davis County.

"It's like, get angry and kick the dog but the dog isn't here, so we'll kick our wife instead," she told Fox 13 News.'