Chicago P.D. season 14 premiere and cast shake-up: Atwater is leaving, and NBC hasn't said why
An original cast member is on his way out of the Intelligence Unit, and the only people dropping hints about why are his co-stars.
Chicago P.D. returned for season 14 on October 7, 2026, and it's the last premiere with LaRoyce Hawkins as a series regular. Hawkins has played Kevin Atwater since the show's very first episode in 2014, and he leaves early this season. Deadline broke the news on July 2, Wolf Entertainment declined to comment, and since then neither NBC, the producers, nor Hawkins himself has said publicly why Atwater is being written off.
What we do know is how. Hawkins wrapped his final episode on August 13, and former co-star Jesse Lee Soffer, whose Jay Halstead left the same way three episodes into season 10, directed it. NBC hasn't announced which episode is Atwater's last, but the production timeline points to the second one. Showrunner Gwen Sigan says the goodbye was built to feel like Atwater's own decision, and that his relationship with Tasha Fox (Karen Obilom), who revealed last season that she's pregnant with his child, drives his final episodes.
"We wanted to give the best sendoff that we could."
— Gwen Sigan, showrunner, to TV Insider
That's the in-story reason. Here are the out-of-story versions people actually believe.
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The theories
- Money. This is the most popular one, and it has a track record behind it. In April 2025, Deadline reported that Chicago Fire's Daniel Kyri and Jake Lockett were cut to trim the budget. The One Chicago renewals that followed came with shorter episode orders, cast members sitting out more episodes, and a request that actors move their residency to Illinois. Nobody has tied Hawkins' exit to budget on the record, but One Chicago fan sites have treated it as the obvious answer since July.
- It wasn't his call. Obilom reposted a fan comment about the show "removing" Hawkins and added her own line: "I sincerely wish things were different." There's also no public sign that Hawkins asked to go.
- The replacement was already lined up. The same Deadline report that broke the exit said the show was casting a new series regular, described as "a Black cop who is an agent of chaos." Fans read that as swapping out the unit's steadiest presence for a disruptor. No actor has been announced.
Chicago P.D. got its season 14 renewal in March. Hawkins' exit didn't surface until July, after a season spent setting Atwater up to become a father.
Who's left
With Hawkins gone, only four original cast members remain: Jason Beghe, Marina Squerciati, Patrick John Flueger, and Amy Morton. Benjamin Levy Aguilar and Arienne Mandi round out the regular cast. The premiere, "Demolition," jumps three months past the season 13 finale and saddles Voight with an FBI agent he has history with, and not the good kind.
Hawkins is the first original regular to leave since Soffer in 2022. Soffer eventually came back to the franchise, first behind the camera and then for a crossover in season 13.
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