The SVU squad room is in for another shakeup.
After 401 episodes, actor Dann Florek, who played Captain Donald Cragen, is leaving "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" after a 15-season run. Florek first appeared as Cragen on "Law & Order" from 1990 to 1993 and later reprised his role in the 1999 spin-off series.
Show creator Warren Leight tweeted photos from the set featuring Florek, Mariska Hargitay and rapper turned actor Ice-T.
"Friday was the last day 4 Cragen/Florek. It was a sweet send off! But he'll live on in syndication land 4 evah!" Florek tweeted on Dec. 9.
Two months earlier, Richard Belzer, who played Detective John Munch, left the show. Leight told TVGuide.com Florek's character was considering retirement in October.
"Cragen knows at some point in the season or by the end of the season he will have hit mandatory retirement so he'll have to figure out when that moment is," Leight said. "We're playing that anxiety that the Captain is leaving at some point."
According to entertainment site, Zap2It, Florek's exist from the show is a way to keep things realistic.
"In the real world, which we try to very hard to simulate, NYPD has mandatory retirement before your 63rd birthday. And we were trying to figure out how to deal with it," Leight told Zap2It when Belzer left the show. "The reason NYPD does it is because you can't have 65-year-old guys running after guys. It is a hard and fast rule."
The new season of Law & Order: SVU, which begins January 8 at 9/8c on NBC.
