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Law & Order star Mehcad Brooks will not be returning to the series for its 25th season, PEOPLE confirmed on Friday, July 18.
Brooks, who portrays Detective Jalen Shaw, is exiting the hit NBC procedural before season 25 begins this fall. The decision was mutual between Brooks and the show’s creative team, per Deadline, which was the first to report the news.
Brooks, 44, first joined the series in season 22, to replace Anthony Anderson, who starred in season 21. Anderson and Sam Waterston were the two Law & Order stalwarts who returned to help the show get back on its feet after a 10-year hiatus. Deadline reports that the production team has begun casting for a new detective.
Tony Goldwyn, Reid Scott, Hugh Dancy, Odelya Halevi and Maura Tierney are set to come back, according to the outlet.
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After he was cast, Brooks told Entertainment Tonight in 2022 that it was “a dream come true in so many ways,” adding, “I grew up watching the show, so it’s surreal in some ways.”
“There’s a system in place that is filled with traps for people,” Brooks, 44, told TheWrap in 2022.
“Jaylen being a Black man who is a cop — not a cop who’s Black — he understands that there’s a system that was put in place centuries ago that every Black person has to fight against,” he said. “Maybe you can escape it, maybe you can’t…. He never wanted to be the guardian of that system.”
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Brooks’ other television credits include Supergirl, True Blood and Necessary Roughness. He also has a role in the third season of HBO Max’s And Just Like That…, playing Marion Odin.
Law & Order season 25 will air later this year. The previous seasons are available to stream on Peacock and Hulu.
