Jayme Deerwester

USA TODAY

Actor Shia LaBeouf's livestream protesting the presidency of Donald Trump has been shut down again, but this time it's by his choice.

"We have taken the stream down after shots were reported in the area," he explained Thursday morning on Twitter. "The safety of everybody participating in our project is paramount."

The USA TODAY Network has reached out to the Albuquerque Police Department to confirm the gunfire reports.

The project, titled "He Will Not Divide Us," moved from the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, N.Y., where it launched on Inauguration Day, to Albuquerque's El Rey Theater earlier this week due to concerns about violence and safety at the original location.

"Over the course of the installation, there have been dozens of threats of violence and numerous arrests, such that police felt compelled to be stationed outside the installation 24 hours a day, seven days a week," museum staff explained in a statement on Feb. 10.

The trouble began Jan. 25, when LaBeouf was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment after he pulled the scarf off a 25-year-old man at the Museum of the Moving Image site.

Reports later emerged that the confrontation may have been sparked by an anti-Semitic trolling campaign organized on message boards like 4Chan, intended to antagonize LaBeouf, who is Jewish.

But the trouble followed the performance-art installation across the country.

The report of gunshots in the area was the second incident in the week since it moved to New Mexico.

On Monday, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the webcam had been vandalized. Visitors who came to see the project the next morning found it spray-painted pink with the message, "Reject False Idols. Do it!" The paint was cleaned off the protector covering the camera, the project resumed later that day and a police investigation was launched.

LaBeouf did not indicate whether the shutdown is temporary or if this is the end of the ambitious project, which was planned to run the duration of the 45th president's term. Produced with Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner, the protest art invited participants to recite the phrase "He will not divide us" into a camera feeding a livestream at hewillnotdivide.us.