There are sounds that humans make with intention. Then there are the wordless sounds we make when our emotions take over—the sounds that, in their texture and tone, speak even more clearly.

Guilty, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill said, as he read the jury’s April 20 verdict on the first of three charges leveled against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Perry Floyd Jr. That’s when I heard those involuntary sounds come up and out.