Trivia: The line "come with me if you wanna live" is said by Sarah Connor for the first time in the franchise.
Trivia: It took 12 months to digitally alter bodybuilder Brett Azar into a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in 35 scenes, which accounts for less than 5 minutes of screen time.
Answer: The T-800 "Pops" was working with Sarah Connor, and they were trying to eliminate any Terminator sent back in time. The punks were incidental and the aim was not necessarily to save them, but Sarah probably also wanted to minimise the collateral deaths as much as possible by destroying the machines as soon as they emerged.
Sierra1 ★