Why did Danny Pino leave Law & Order: SVU?
Pino left the series after producers determined

that his character, Amaro, would be hitting a dead

-end within the department given his actions while at the SVU.

In a 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly,

then-producer Warren Leight explored the reasons for Amaro’s exit.

“We had put his character through a lot. Although his intentions were good, a lot of what he’d gone through ended up putting him in trouble with the brass downtown,” Leight explained. “Amaro is a character with ambition and the more we would

talk to cops about what happens after a guy shoots an unarmed kid, what happens to a cop after he loses it with a pedophile, where is he going in NYPD? And they said, ‘These days, nowhere.'”

“It was interesting to acknowledge the reality of the way his behavior — however well-intentioned and however he’s trying to turn it around — has painted himself into a corner,” he added

“Even in the last four years, the world has changed,” Leight continued. “There is a lot more awareness of when cops abuse power and a lot more scrutiny with things”