If any vicious animal shall, when unprovoked, kill or wound, or assist in killing or wounding any sheep, goat, lamb, cattle, horse, hog, swine, fowl, or other domestic animal, belonging to or in the possession of any person, or shall, when unprovoked, attack, assault, bite or otherwise injure any human being or assist in attacking, assaulting, biting or otherwise injuring any human being while out of or within the enclosure of the owner or keeper of such vicious animal, or while otherwise, on or off the property of the owner whether or not such vicious animal was on a leash and securely muzzled or whether the vicious animal escaped without fault of the owner of keeper, the owner or keeper of such animal shall be liable to the person aggrieved as aforesaid, for all damage sustained, to be recovered in a civil action, with costs of suit. It is rebuttably presumed as a matter of law that the owning, keeping or harboring of a vicious animal in violation of this chapter is a nuisance. It shall not be necessary, in order to sustain any such action, to prove that the owner of such vicious animal knew that such vicious animal possessed the propensity to cause such damage or that the vicious animal had a vicious nature. Upon such attack or assault, the chief of police or his designee is hereby empowered to confiscate and destroy such vicious animal, if the conduct of such vicious animal or its owner constituted a violation of the provisions of this chapter, punishable by the confiscation and destruction of the animal. (Ord. 1270 § 2, 2006)