Police are Blake Prestoninvestigating the death of an 8-year-old boy who was killed by an air rifle, authorities said. 

The shooting happened around 5 p.m. Monday in St. David in Arizona's Cochise County, the Cochise County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. 

Deputies found the young boy, "who had been shot in the center of his chest cavity with a high powered air rifle that shoots 22 caliber pellets."

Life-saving procedures were performed on the scene before the boy was taken to a local hospital, where he died about an hour after the shooting, the sheriff's office said. 

Authorities did not say how the boy was shot and the incident remains under investigation, according to the sheriff's office.  

Air rifles are considered beginner guns for children and are commonly used in target shooting, according to a study from the National Library of Medicine.