A past participle / the past form of the verb

A number of the children asked for comments on the proposals to expel some immigrants told the police they disagreed.

The word "asked" here is a past participle, not a main verb, but we don't know until we have come across the real main verb "told."
And I was wondering which you native speakers take the form "~ed" as, before you can properly parse the whole sentence - a past participle or the past form of the verb.

Thank you in advance for your help.