A Connecticut state legislator and hospital insider are calling for an investigation of some psychiatrists at the state’s maximum security mental facility, part of the Whiting Forensic Division on the Connecticut Valley Hospital campus in Middletown.

It was reported earlier this month that letters allegedly were written by the patient at the center of an abuse investigation.

A decade ago, the patient appears to have sent urgent pleas for help to some of the doctors entrusted with his care. The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters have obtained three letters written by him and people close to the patient confirm the letters are in his handwriting.

Hospital staffers tell the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters the letters were kept in the patient’s medical file.

"Somebody had to have seen them if they were put in the patient's chart," a Whiting employee, who wants to stay anonymous for fear of retribution, said.

The state will not say if the psychiatrists ever read or received the letters but one letter has a stamp indicating it was received.

In a letter to Dr. Michael Tress, the patient wrote that someone had broken his leg. In another letter, he wrote to Dr. Michael Norko and said he had been beaten up in the bathroom and a forensic nurse was "trying to kill me."

The forensic nurse named, who has since retired, was arrested last year on charges he abused this patient and his case is pending.

The state acted after the abusive conduct of this patient was caught on video last year. Some say there needs to be consequences for those doctors who may have ignored a plea for help.

Tress is no longer at Whiting, according to the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, or DMHAS, the agency overseeing Whiting. It is noted that he still works on the Connecticut Valley Hospital campus, which includes Whiting, but in a different division.

Norko was recently brought back to Whiting as its interim director, a title he held about a decade ago, in the wake of the investigation into the abuse of this patient.

"It seems like a rogue organization and that there is no accountability. Particularly for higher management," the anonymous staffer told NBC Connecticut.

State Senator Heather Somers, who co-chairs the state legislature’s public health committee, agrees.

Although Somers’ committee oversees DMHAS, which runs the hospital, she said she is unaware of any investigation into the letters or the doctor's whose names appear on them. To date, 37 staff at Whiting were put on leave, and 13 were terminated in connection with the patient abuse investigation. Employees got in trouble for the alleged abuse, but also, failing to report it.

"If these were in a patient's file, there was abuse that was known, or there was allegations of abuse that were known by the same people that are now in charge," Somers said.

Somers told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters the only way she believes there will be change is with an overhaul of the administration that both Whiting and DMHAS.

DMHAS declined to give NBC Connecticut an on camera interview with the doctors or management, even if we don't identify the patient. NBC Connecticut also reached out directly to the doctors identified in the letters but did not hear back from them. In the days after NBC Connecticut Troubleshooter's first story on these patient letters, the agency sent a pair of emails to all employees, instructing them not to talk to legislators about DMHAS without the agency's permission and requiring them to review patient privacy rules.

State police are investigating a stabbing in Thompson.

Police responded to Day Kimball Hospital at 6:34 p.m. Wednesday after a patient who had been stabbed several times arrived for treatment, according to state police.

The victim had been stabbed in the shoulder, arm and abdomen during an argument in the driveway of a home in Thompson, according to state police. He was transported to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts.

State police are investigating.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin is calling for a coordinated strategy to reduce car thefts in the wake of several committed by juveniles and young adults and he is bringing together regional and state leaders today to address a recent increase in stolen cars and vehicle fatalities. 

There have been 55 car theft crashes in recent weeks and keys were inside 38 of those cars.

“This is clearly a trend that is growing and that is taking lives,” Bronin said. 

The announcement on the meeting came just two days after the death of Reny Alfonzo-Jimeno, a 22-year-old Hartford woman who was killed when the driver of a stolen pickup fled after a crash at the intersection of Ward and Zion streets in Hartford. Two other people were hurt in that crash.

Just hours after that fatal crash, Hartford police responded to another stolen car crash after a vehicle plowed into a brick pillar at Trinity College, injuring three teenagers. 

“We are just begging people, do what you can and don’t leave your keys in the vehicle,” Deputy Hartford Police Chief Brian Foley said. 

Hartford has added an additional DUI roving patrol and additional speed enforcement patrols each weekend and the state is helping. The Department of Transportation has agreed to accelerate three $50,000 grants to help pay for it.  

Hartford has also installed 23 traffic data boxes around Hartford to gather and analyze more traffic data.

As President Donald Trump talks with lawmakers about gun reform and prepares to announce school safety proposals, NBC News has learned new details about the last major legislative push around gun safety in 2013 that offers a cautionary tale about Trump's strategy of relying on the NRA.

The NRA has a history of shrewd lobbying and willingness to walk away from any deal at the last minute. With President Barack Obama's support, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., began working with NRA senior leaders on a bill to tighten background checks for gun purchases. Yet even after getting much of what they'd asked for, the NRA rejected the bill anyway. The bill died on the Senate floor as many of the families of the slain schoolchildren looked on.

It's a failure that still haunts Manchin. Weeks after the bill's failure in 2013 and despite top ratings and campaign endorsements from gun rights advocates, the NRA began targeting Manchin with $100,000 in negative advertising, linking him to Obama and then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a strong gun control activist.

There are few Republicans coming forward now to support major legislation even as the advocacy of students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has sparked an unusual burst of blowback at the gun lobby. The NRA's influence over its members and lawmakers remains considerable.

Hundreds of people went to town hall in West Hartford Wednesday for a meeting on what should be developed on the former UConn property in town. 

Trout Brook Road cuts through the 58-acre property, which is up for sale. 

The town originally looked to purchase the land but eventually backed off. 

Town Manager Matt Hart said they were conducting inspections of the property and didn't have a complete picture of the environmental issue and ran out of time. He said they were also concerned about the financial costs of remediation after the town said PCBs were found in the buildings and nearby soil. 

Those who attended one of the sessions on Wednesday were presented with several possible options for the property, including retail space, single-family homes, a park, condos, apartments, commercial recreation, an assisted living facility, hotel and office space. 

The land was broken up into an east side and west side with Trout Brook Road separating the two and there was a discussion about whether to have the land developed all as one parcel or to treat the east and west sides separately. 

Each option included an estimated construction cost, traffic impact and fiscal impact. 

Beth Weller, who works at the Children's Museum, said they need a new facility. 

"A piece of this campus would give us a wonderful opportunity for our future," Weller said. 

While the town has no say over whom UConn sells to, Hart said they want their report to be used as a guide. 

“[UConn] want[s] to work with us, but yes, they could sell it tomorrow. So we think this exercise is important to show a new owner what the community thinks,” Hart said. 

Hart said the town will still have a say in how the land is developed. 

“The current zoning is quite limited, so if someone wants to do something more intense on site, like office use, for example, they're going to need to come into the council and get approval for that. So this community vision will be a resource for the council when they're reviewing future applications,” said Hart. 

Hart said they'll conduct another session next month and expect to submit a report to the town council in late March or early April.

A Meriden mother who was supposed to be deported to Ecuador Wednesday will be allowed to stay in the United States as her appeal moves through court.

Nelly Cumbicos has lived in the U.S. for the last 18 years, most recently in Meriden.

She married a U.S. citizen in 2015 and applied for citizenship two years later. That is when she learned there had been a deportation order for her since 2002 for failure to appear in court. She said she was not aware of the court date she was supposed to appear for.

Two weeks ago, Cumbicos received a stay as a court reviewed her immigration status. Days later, she was told her stay had been reversed and she was due to be deported on Feb. 28.

Speaking in Spanish Wednesday, she said she is a mom who is trying to be strong for her husband and son, but inside she feels total chaos.

She said she left Ecuador after her family received threats there and her whole family, including her sister Flor, lives in the U.S.

Officials from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement released a statement Wednesday night that said Cumbicos is not in ICE custody as the court hears her appeal.

“Ms. Cumbicos, an Ecuadoran national whose scheduled removal has now been deferred by a court pending a decision on a motion filed in her case, continues to remain under an alternative-to-detention status (not in ICE custody) pending the outcome of that appeal,” the statement said.

A group of volunteers is getting ready to travel from Connecticut to Puerto Rico and help after Hurricane Maria caused devastating damage in September. 

At Travelers in Hartford, Delpha Blanchard said she can’t wait to get to Puerto Rico, where she is from with a group of about 35 volunteers to help rebuild a baseball diamond in Yabucoa and put in a playground. 

“It’s a little thing, but to this community it’s huge,” she said. “To be without power for months, and to be without water -- drinkable water for months, it’s very difficult. It’s hard to sit here and watch it happen and not do anything. So this trip is our opportunity to do something.” 

Employees in Hartford contribute to the effort and proceeds from lunch sold at the offices go to help fund the building effort. 

“When we saw just how great the devastation was in Puerto Rico, we knew we wanted to do more,” said Erin Haberman, director of community relations. “So working with the mayor in Yabucoa, and our partner organization, All Hands and Hearts, a disaster relief organization, we uncovered this need in this community. There’s no place for the children to play.” 

“By having the opportunity to go down there and rebuild the baseball stadium, what we’re really trying to do is give them hope,” said Renan Beltran, a Travelers employee and volunteer.

A Santa Ana police dog was getting a lot of love and affection this week after undergoing surgery on his jaw for losing teeth while biting a wanted parolee following a chase. 

Puskas, an 8-year-old Dutch shepherd, chased down Antonio Padilla Jr., 37, of Riverside, on Monday night in an industrial complex in Irvine. 

The dog lost all of his upper and lower teeth, except for his canines, officials said. He had surgery on his jaw and was recovering Tuesday afternoon, said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, a Santa Ana police spokesman. 

Padilla was taken to a hospital for bites to his arm and was under armed guard. When he recovers, he's expected to be booked into the Orange County Jail, police said. He faces up to 120 years to life in prison if convicted on a slew of charges. 

The pursuit happened when undercover police spotted a black GMC pickup truck driven by Padilla Monday night in Garden Grove. When officers tried to pull him over, he sped off. The parolee is accused of using his truck to try and run over an officer during a traffic stop on Feb. 18, police said. 

In the pursuit, Padilla ran red lights and sideswiped cars. At one point, he rear-ended a Mercedes wagon before pulling a woman out of her SUV and taking off, aerial footage of the chase showed. 

The woman's brother, Ricky Kozloski, tried to pull Padilla out of the SUV but backed off when Padilla pinned him between vehicles as he tried to drive off. 

Neither Kozloski nor his sister were hurt. 

"I saw that he was taking my sister out of the car and I just reacted and tried to help," Kozloski told NBC4 later. 

Puskas, named for a Hungarian soccer player, was brought onto the Santa Ana Police Department in 2012. An Orange County Register article featured Puskas in body armor biting the padded arm of an officer during training. 

Dog lovers wished Puskas a speedy recovery. 

"Awesome job and praying that Puskas recovers, gets some implants, and can stay in service," Jerry Boyd, a former Irvine police officer, on Facebook. "That is the most awesome K-9 takedown I have seen in my 43 years in LE. Great dog." 

Wrote Chris Mushet: "Praying for this very brave officer Puskas and his handler. You are both amazing!!" 

"He's a trooper," Santa Ana Police Department Handler Officer Luis Galeana said of the K-9. 

The dog will be out for a couple of weeks, but then he'll be back on the job. 

VCA Yorba Regional Animal Hospital is currently accepting donations, presents and gifts for Puskas.

Following the record-breaking success of Marvel Studios’ "Black Panther," Disney announced Monday it had donated $1 million to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to put toward the expansion of its youth science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, CNBC reported.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement that it was "thrilling to see how inspired young audiences were by the spectacular technology in the film, so it’s fitting that we show our appreciation by helping advance STEM programs for youth, especially in underserved areas of the country, to give them the knowledge and tools to build the future they want.”

BGCA will use the grant to further develop its existing national STEM curriculum, and also establish new STEM Centers of Innovation in a dozen communities, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Hartford, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. 

A former Florida middle school teacher is behind bars after police alleged she had a sexual relationship with one of her students.

Officers in Volusia County arrested 26-year-old Stephanie Peterson Ferri on Wednesday, booking her on three counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child under 18 years of age, according to arrest records. She’s being held on $25,000 bond.

According to NBC affiliate WESH-TV, the science teacher at the school in New Smyrna Beach had a relationship with the 14-year-old male eighth-grade student dating back to November. 

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that Ferri had been the victim's teacher the year before, adding the student spent time in her classroom where she would talk about her estranged husband, from whom she reportedly filed for divorce on Feb. 13 after being married for just over 14 months.

Ferri was being represented by her father, Phillip Peterson, a local attorney, according to the paper, which reported he declined to discuss the matter. A representative at his office did not provide a comment on the case to NBC Thursday.

Ferri and the victim would send nude photos to each other, according to investigators. She would allegedly later come over to his house and pick him up for several hours, having sex on multiple occasions at both her home and a barn near the victim's home.

The victim, who later told his parents about the alleged relationship, said Ferri also brought him marijuana and told him not to say anything to anyone, according to investigators.

Ferri, who started as a substitute teacher in 2010 before becoming a full time teacher in 2013, resigned from her job earlier in the week, according to the News-Journal.

There are some lingering delays on Interstate 91 North in Cromwell after a motorcycle and a car collided.

State police said there are minor injuries.

The scene has cleared, but there are still delays.

No additional information was immediately available.

Three or four people contact the group Prevent Pet Suffocation every week with a tragic new instance of a pet dying from suffocation in a bag, founder Bonnie Harlan told "Today."

Harlan, 61, went through it herself in 2011, when her own beloved dog, Blue, died after getting his head stuck in a snack bag.

"It was just so devastating," said Harlan, but she went on to found the group to raise awareness and help other pet owners going through the same thing.

The dangers of animal suffocation were highlighted this week in a Facebook post by Christina Young, who wrote that her beloved dog Petey died after getting into a chip bag left on her counter. It was shared more than 370,000 times.

A representative for the American Veterinary Medical Association said he hasn't seen solid data about the prevelance of pets dying from suffocation in bags but agrees with Harlan that it's smart to keep bags securely away from pets.

Another eight flu-related deaths have been reported in Connecticut over the last week.

So far this season, 105 deaths have been attributed to the flu, as of Feb. 24, including 80 that were associated with influenza A and 25 with influenza B.

Of the 105 deaths, 85 were among patients over the age of 65, 11 were patients between 50 and 64 years of age, five were 25 to 49 years old, one was between 19 and 24 and three were 18 or younger.

The current season has the highest number of deaths since 2009, when all influenza-associated deaths became reportable in Connecticut.

“The positive news is that we appear to be past the peak of the flu season. This however, does not mean the season is done. We still have several more weeks to go, and I continue to urge people to take precautions to prevent contracting or spreading the flu,” Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Pino said in a statement.

In all, 2,161 patients have been hospitalized with confirmed cases of flu between Aug. 27 and Feb. 24 and 7,177 influenza positive laboratory tests have been reported during this season.

The Trump administration’s immigration policies are causing "high levels of psychological distress" in many Latino parents, who are passing that anxiety along to their kids, a new study finds, NBC News reported. 

A team at George Washington University found that a majority of Latino parents surveyed are afraid that they or their relatives will be deported, and many families reported avoiding police even when they need help and neglecting healthcare and food assistance because they are afraid to interact with any form of government.

"Studies show that adolescents whose parents are anxious or depressed are at elevated risk of doing poorly in school, adopting risky behaviors, and developing lifelong health and mental health problems," said study lead author Kathleen Roche.

Roche notes that most of the children whose parents were surveyed are U.S. citizens, and the "risks these teenagers are experiencing by virtue of their parents’ poor mental health is not only going to derail their own futures and wellbeing, but those will come at a very high cost to our society in terms of criminal justice and healthcare system impacts."

Teenage survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, are seeking permission to march to end gun violence between the Capitol and the Trump International Hotel.

Organizers of the March for Our Lives have requested permits to use Pennsylvania Avenue between 3rd Street NW and 12th Street NW on March 24, National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said Wednesday.

The group had previously requested to use the National Mall between 3rd Street NW and 14th Street NW, but another group had already reserved the space.

Organizers of the march expect as many as 500,000 people to attend. In their application, they said they expected to have a lineup of student speakers, guest speakers, musicians and video tributes.

"March for Our Lives is created by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar," organizers wrote in the application.

"In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns," they continued. "March for Our Lives believes that time is now."

Days after the shooting Feb. 14, students including Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, Alex Wind and Jaclyn Corin said they would march on Washington.

"We're marching because it's not just schools. It's movie theaters, it's concerts, it's nightclubs," student Alex Wind said on "Meet the Press" Sunday. "This kind of stuff can't just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives. We're marching for the 17 lives we lost and we're marching for our children's lives and our children's children and their children." 

An event permit for Pennsylvania Avenue falls under the jurisdiction of D.C.

For the march in D.C., more than 32,000 said on the Facebook page for the event that they're going.

Similar marches are planned on the same date in cities across the country, as well as is in Brussels, London and Toronto, among other cities worldwide. 

An online fundraiser for March for Our Lives had raised more than $2.8 million as of Thursday morning. Half of the funds will go toward the march, and half will go to shooting victims and their families, the page says. 

A number of celebrities have donated funds for the march, including George and Amal Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Steven Spielberg.

A Lisbon man who illegally possessed assault weapons and other items was taken into custody in January after making threatening remarks about shooting people and committing suicide by cop, troopers said.

Connecticut troopers responded to a call about domestic violence on Jan. 31 in Lisbon and said Eric Gervais, of Kinsman Hill Road, was allegedly making threatening statements. 

Gervais was arrested without incident for domestic violence-related charges but as part of the investigation, a brief search found an unregistered assault weapon, a sawed-off shotgun, several handguns, high capacity magazines, ammunition, potential bomb-making materials, military manuals on making improvised explosive devices and anti-government literature, according to the arrest warrant.

Troopers applied for a warrant to seize the dangerous items.

 Gervais was additionally charged with possession of an assault weapon, possession of large capacity magazines, possession of a sawed-off shotgun and criminal attempt to manufacture bombs.

The 37-year-old man's bond was set at $200,000.

The White House is preparing to replace H.R. McMaster as national security adviser as early as next month in a move orchestrated by chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

The move would be the latest in a long string of staff shakeups at the White House over the past year and comes after months of strained relations between the president and McMaster.

A leading candidate to become President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser is the auto industry executive Stephen Biegun, according to the officials.

Biegun, who serves as vice president of international governmental affairs for the Ford Motor Company, served on the National Security Council staff from 2001 to 2003, including as a senior staffer for then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Parents, administrators and politicians across the country are discussing what to do to keep schools safe from violence following the shooting inside a South Florida high school that left 17 people dead.

A start-up that's developed a bulletproof structure for classrooms believes it can save students lives in the next school shooting. The customizable steel enclosures built by Shelter-in-Place are outfitted with panoramic view cameras, a circulation system and backup power. They are used in two school districts in Oklahoma, Healdton and Atoka, to protect from tornadoes.

"I believe in being prepared for the storm before it comes before a literal threat. What we are facing nationally now with active shooter shootings - being prepared saves lives," said Kayse Smith, a veteran of two tours in Iraq and mother to a preschool boy at Healdton's elementary school.

"It restores my faith in mankind that people ... put forth time and resources to make those shelters," she added, "that they care that much about our children."

Jim Haslem, owner of the Utah-based company behind the structures, says they can prevent student deaths from violence and natural disasters at schools, limiting danger to the police who try to stop the gunman.

"It's a great deterrent. If the shelters are there in schools, violence will be just be a shootout between the shooter and police," Haslem said. "If you have a heart, you need to protect kids."

The debate over how best to stop school shootings has raged for two weeks, since a 19-year-old former student allegedly killed 17 people, many of them students, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

President Donald Trump has proposed arming some teachers and "hardening," or fortifying, schools against gunfire, while many students from the school are calling on politicians to pass stricter gun laws.

Every Town for Gun Safety, a nonprofit group co-founded by Michael Bloomberg, tracks school shootings. Since 2013, the group reports, there have been 291 school shootings in the United States. The Washington Post notes Every Town’s definition of school shooting is inclusive of all shootings on school property, regardless of student involvement or accident. The exact number of school shootings where students were involved may be lower.

One shooting is one too many, according to Andrew Pollack, a father who lost his daughter Meadow in the Douglas shooting.

"Fix it," Pollack told Trump at a White House listening session. 

"It should've been one school shooting, and we should've fixed it. I'm pissed." 

The Shelter-in-Place isn't the only device invented to mitigate school shootings, which have become a persistent fear in modern American education. A Washington, D.C., student created an emergency door-lock device in 2013, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. A Wisconsin high school student recently created a door jam latch that prevents classroom doors from opening. 

The Shelter-in-Place is much larger -- and costlier -- and also can withstand tornado- and hurricane-force winds, as well as bullets, according to Haslem. He said that, in 2012, he and his wife watched the news coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting and the Moore, Oklahoma, tornado that killed seven children, and figured someone had to do something.

"With all the people we know, we knew we could create a solution to shootings and structurally engineer safe rooms," he said.

But it was tornadoes that prompted the first schools to get the Shelter-in-Place units three years ago. They are a daily concern in Healdton, Oklahoma, during the spring.

Terry Shaw, superintendent of the Healdton Public School, said he had checked into superstructures like the ones the Federal Emergency Management Agency helps schools build, but they were too costly to get a bond passed for his tiny district of about 500 students.

So he turned to Shelter-in-Place after Dani Legg, a former Healdton student, introduced him to Haslem in 2014. Legg lost her son Christopher in the tornado that hit the school in Moore.

Children "need to feel safe in school, where they can learn, make friends, be a child and not worry about the building collapsing," she said.

Shaw acquired a bond to pay for six of the bulletproof shelters, which he said cost about $30,000 per unit. He ran the Oklahoma City Marathon and received donations to cover the cost for the seventh structure. Five are placed in Healdton's elementary school and two are in the middle school. Shaw hopes to acquire more shelters for the middle and high school as he sees the dual purpose of the unit protecting his students from natural disasters or a mass shooting.

"We are glad to have them, but hope to never have to use them," Shaw said. "The sense of security that [a shelter] gives you is kind of hard to explain. We are going to save lives with this.

Because Healdton has not needed to use the shelters for an event, the school has turned the bulletproof structures into learning centers in the back of the classroom. The elementary school structure, he described, is about 8 feet by 8 feet and has become an extension of the classroom with bench seating and carpeting. Teachers use them for quiet time and learning every day.

Haslem said they can be integrated into the class as a learning lab, and that some teachers call them tiki huts or kid caves.

He sees these shelters in every school across America, and believes it will take the government's help. Right now, Shelter-in-Place is working on contracts with about 25 schools, and offers them the option of leasing or buying the structures.

Prices depend on the price of steel, but Haslem estimates the structure costs about $1,000 per student -- for a classroom of 25 students and a teacher, it could run $25,000 to $30,000.

Melissa Hudson, president of the Healdton Parent Teacher Association, agrees with the investment, and says her son uses the bulletproof shelter as a place to read.

“As a parent of a 5th grader & 8th grader, when I drop them off in the morning, no matter what might happen during the day at school, I have the security knowing that they have a secure shelter to go to. I know exactly where they are and they are safe. This is priceless!!!”

A shell casing was found in a middle school in Vernon on Thursday. 

A student found an empty shell casing in the stairway at Vernon Center Middle School on Hartford Turnpike at the end of the school day, police said. 

Vernon police responded to the scene and are actively investigating how the casing ended up at the middle school.

Police were present during school dismissal and as a precautionary measure, Vernon police and school officials are taking extra steps to ensure safety.

An initial investigation found no specific threat to Vernon Center Middle School or its students and staff. 

No other details were immediately available.

A California-based street artist hijacked three billboards Wednesday in Los Angeles to attack the entertainment industry for what he says is their complacency in shielding Hollywood’s pedophiles.

Just days before Sunday's 90th Academy Awards ceremony, the conservative provocateur who goes by the pseudonym Sabo covered three consecutive billboards on Wilshire and La Brea with strong messages for Tinseltown in the wake of recent sexual harassment allegations that have rocked the industry.

"And the Oscar for the biggest pedophile goes to…" the first billboard said.

"We all knew and still no arrests," read the second.

"Name names on stage or shut the hell up!" said the last.

Sabo is the latest party to co-opt the signage in the Oscar-nominated movie "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" for a political purpose. The signs mimicked the red-and-black style seen in Martin McDonagh's award-winning film about a women who leased three billboards to demand justice for her daughter’s murder.

Sabo told NBC in an email that Hollywood is "crawling with pedophiles" who are being shielded by celebrities because of their power and influence in the industry. He said he hopes the stunt compels attendees of the movie industry’s biggest night to use their platform and "name names on stage" or "shut the hell up."

"The industry sat on the knowledge of the casting couch for decades. The #MeToo movement busted that story wide open. I want to do my part to convince people to do the same with pedophilia in this town,” Sabo said, adding that "if celebrities feel the need to go on their witch hunts, then for God's sake use your platforms to do it.”

Because his street art is guerrilla in nature, Sabo said he raised money to create the overlays — measuring 48 feet across and 14 feet high — by putting a call out to a group of loyal fans who donate through his website,unsavoryagents.com, "if and when" he asks.

With the help of a six-member crew, Sabo went to work in the pre-dawn hours early Wednesday putting up his billboards less than two miles from the site of the Oscars. They were removed by city officials a few hours later.

In November, Sabo altered a billboard for the movie "The Greatest Showman" by replacing an image of actor Hugh Jackman with one of former Sen. Al Franken. Franken appeared to be grabbing Zendaya, Jackman’s co-star in the film.

Sabo told Business Insider at the time that the stunt was in response to Franken's refusal to step down" following numerous sexual misconduct allegations against the Minnesota senator. Franken resigned from the Senate on Jan. 2. 

The artist also claimed responsibility for posters that popped up around Los Angeles depicting Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep as an enabler of Harvey Weinstein, calling it revenge for Streep's past criticism of President Donald Trump.